


at the shrine of your lies

by panaili



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Sexual Assault, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Neglect, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Major Character Injury, Panic Attacks, Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5731801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panaili/pseuds/panaili
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Marco’s dad doesn’t get better. [COMPLETE]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first attempt at Animorphs fanfiction since I was reading the books for the first time when I was 10 years old. It feels very weird to be back in this fandom. :) I was definitely encouraged in part by The Hindsight podcast, which renewed my absolute love for the series again. If you haven't checked it out, I highly encourage it, it's a great podcast. :D
> 
> Most of the warnings in the heading are for chapters later on in this story. (Child neglect is pretty much the theme, though.) I will give a warning beforehand when the chapter dealing with any of the referenced tags is posted.
> 
> Also, this story takes place somewhere between book 13 & book 15. I kind of fudged with the exact timeline, because the books themselves are not helpful with that. :P

**at the shrine of your lies**

 

 

_Take me to church_

_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_

_I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife_

_Offer me that deathless death_

_Good God, let me give you my life_

 

 

 

 

My name is Marco.

And I was getting really sick of the smell of bars.

I avoided the front entrance entirely, because despite my incredible wit and dashing good looks, I was still pretty easily identifiable as a teenager. No point in making the cops think I was actually trying to get inside for some juvenile delinquency.

Man, I wish my life had time for run-of-the-mill juvenile delinquency. I would be such a good delinquent.

As it stood, though, I was just one lone kid shivering from the brisk January air in the middle of an alley that had definitely seen better days. I knocked on the green metal door and waited, eyeing a rat huddled next to some soggy pizza boxes.

After a few moments, the door creaked open, and Julius poked his head out. “Eh, Marco,” he greeted, giving me a familiar nod. “Here again?”

“I’ll just be a minute,” I answered.

“Alright,” Julius said, opening the door a bit wider and ushering me in. Julius was a pretty big guy, with shoulders that resembled a mack truck more than most people. His eyes and skin were both darker than Cassie’s, and he kept his hair cut short in a military cut. “But I’m not letting you go out there tonight. I’ll go get him.”

“It’s no big deal—,” I began, glancing around him to see if I could see into the bar.

“No,” Julius said. His tone made him sound way more serious than our previous, easygoing conversations had been, and I gave him a weird look. He sighed. “Look, there are a couple of real lowlifes hanging around tonight, and I don’t want you near them. I can get your old man.”

I stopped trying to get around him, recognizing the warning for what it was, but I had to ask, “Have they been hanging around my dad, too?”

“They’ve been trying to hang around everyone,” Julius answered vaguely, turning around and walking toward the swinging door that led out into the bar. “But I’m less inclined to be worried about him.”

He left before I could reply. I sat down on a chair beside a tattered folding table, which seemed to be serving as an interim break room, and tried not to feel insulted by Julius’ casual dismissal of my father.

Like I said, my name is Marco. I wish I could tell you my last name, or where I live, but I have a whole double life when I’m not picking my dad up from the neighborhood bar, though it seems like I’m doing that every other day now. My secret life is much more interesting and dangerous, but both seem to be equally as depressing sometimes.

So, cliff notes version: aliens exist, and some of them are trying to take over Earth. These particular aliens are called Yeerks, and they look like nasty garden slugs. They can infest people and control everything they do – it’s like invasion of the body snatchers, but weirder and way scarier.

Luckily, some other alien was on the human side, and he decided to help us out before he was brutally killed. He gave my friends and I the power to change into animals to help fight the invasion. We turn into tigers and bears and gorillas and attack the Yeerk operations. With our claws. Against their many guns and ships and laser weapons.

Yes, it’s as dumb as it sounds.

Unfortunately, it’s also exactly as dangerous as it sounds. But we’re not really spoiled for choice.

And in the time I have remaining where I’m not actively trying to die via alien warfare, I get to track down my dad. Who has somehow gone from bad to worse when it comes to dealing with his grief.

See, my mom disappeared almost three years ago, and my dad took it pretty hard. He lost his job, and we had to move into this pretty crappy apartment. For a while, he was like a zombie. He worked part-time jobs and made just enough for food and rent, and spent most of his time camped out on the couch. I spent most of my time doing all the chores and wishing he’d snap out of it.

About six months ago, Dad tried to pull it around. He contacted his old boss, but he’d been out of the field for too long and they didn’t have a position for him. A week after that, the company he contracted with for his janitor job had to terminate his contract. They had been bought out by a bigger company, which apparently didn’t have any custodial needs.

Dad took the loss of his job way harder than any of the others he’d lost in the past few years. For awhile, it looked like he was going to fall back into his zombie ways, but somewhere along the line, he seemed to have realized that he wasn’t being a good dad by collapsing on the couch all day.

So instead of collapsing on our couch and drinking a little, now my dad collapsed on a bar stool and drank a lot.

Not really an improvement.

“Okay, let’s go,” I heard Julius say as he nudged the swinging doors open with his hip. My dad stumbled along after him, squinting in the light of the kitchen. His eyes looked more bloodshot than usual, and he seemed confused.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked. Dad was always decently drunk whenever I came to get him, but he was usually overly emotional and weirdly affectionate. Right now he just looked kind of spaced out and shaky.

“I’m… not sure,” Julius said, trailing off. His brow furrowed. “Maybe he had too much. Those guys aren’t the best drinking buddies.”

I frowned, stepping forward to touch my dad’s shoulder. “Hey, Dad. It’s Marco. Are you… okay? Dad?”

It took a few moments, but Dad slowly blinked and focused down at me. His eyes had dark bags underneath them, from weeks of fitful sleeping, and the florescent lighting in the bar kitchen only made him look ghastly and pale. But for the first time he seemed to focus, and his lips twitched in a partial grin. “Marco?”

“Yeah, it’s Marco,” I said, more relieved than I anticipated. I hated it when he had weird nights; it was hard enough just dealing with my dad’s normal drunken routine, but at least the sloppy drunk act was predictable.

“Marco,” Dad repeated, sounding dreamy. His eyes started drifting again, focusing on the back wall. “Yeah, Marco.”

Sighing, I shifted my grip and pulled Dad toward me, so he slumped against my narrow shoulders instead of leaning on Julius. Better to get him home while he was responding to me, rather than seeing if he’d snap out of it. “All right, come on, Dad.”

“Kid,” Julius said as I began dragging my father toward the back door. I paused, glancing back, and he started to say, “Look, if you need—”

“Thanks, Julius,” I said sharply, turning away and pushing the door open with one hand. My other hand wrapped around my Dad’s back as he leaned against me. I pulled Dad outside into the chilly weather without waiting to listen for Julius’ reply. The light spilled out into the dark alley, highlighting the scattered trash and making the rats scurry hurriedly behind the dumpster.

I really didn’t want to deal with his pity tonight.

So instead I adjusted my grip around my dad and started the slow, lumbering walk home.

 

\--

 

My dad was still passed out on the couch in the morning when I woke up. That, at least, was in keeping with his norm. He’d go on a bender at the bar, sleep until mid-afternoon the next day, and then have a few days of bleary sobriety before succumbing to the bar yet again.

Sometimes it’s kind of depressing to realize how well I have my dad’s patterns down.

I grabbed a bowl of cereal and paged through my history textbook, trying to will up the urge to care about the quiz I knew we were having in third period. After two minutes of fruitless skimming, I couldn’t even remember what event the quiz was supposed to cover. It all blurred together in my head.

I gave up. It’s not like my grades had been particularly stellar even before I started fighting in a secret guerilla war against aliens, so it’s doubtful my teacher would notice when I bombed the quiz.

A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts, and I hurriedly shoved the textbook in my backpack, grabbed a hoodie and opened the door.

Jake stood on my front steps, looking as broad and serious as he always did these days.

“Oh no,” I greeted, giving him a dark look.

Jake didn’t laugh, but his eyebrow quirked in amusement. “Marco,” he said, “Good morning to you, too. You look exhausted.”

“Don’t ‘good morning’ me,” I said. “You’re at my house before school.”

“I thought we’d walk together.”

“We never walk together. You live a mile closer to the school than I do. What’s going on?”

“You’re so suspicious nowadays,” Jake accused lightly, a small smirk on his lips. “Maybe I just want to hang out with my friend.”

“Yeah, and maybe I’m the newest member of the Mickey Mouse Club,” I snapped back without thinking. I shut the door behind me and locked it, shoving the keys into the pocket of my jeans, and turned to follow Jake down the walkway.

“Is that a big dream of yours?” Jake asked, grinning like he’d won. “Y’know, all the boy bands got their start there.”

“See, I know you’re trying to make fun of me, but the members of those boy bands are ridiculously rich and famous, so you’d better believe that’s a big dream of mine. I could do without the singing and dancing part, but whatever works, right?”

Jake laughed, and the feeling of dread that had been lingering in my mind since I saw him began to lighten a little bit. For a short while, we walked down the street like normal, and it almost felt like the old days.

But I haven’t survived this long by ignoring the obvious.

“Jake?” I asked as we waited for at a crosswalk for a green light. “Why’d you go a mile out of your way to walk me to school? I know I’m pretty, but it’s a bit ‘clingy boyfriend’ for you. What would Cassie think?”

Jake grinned at the joke, but soon his expression grew serious again. “Do you want the bad reason or the worse reason?”

“Just spit it out.”

“I saw you last night,” Jake said, sounding awkward.

I froze. My voice sounded strange as I asked, “What?”

“At the bar, with your dad,” said Jake. “I followed you there as a rat.”

The light turn green and the little “WALK” symbol lit up white, prompting both of us to start walking across the street. I focused on the ground in front of me, thinking back to the night before, and I said, “You were that rat in the alley.”

“Yeah,” Jake confirmed. Then, in the same level tone, he asked, “Why didn’t you say it had gotten so bad?”

For a long moment, I didn’t say anything. We were making our way through an empty field rather than following the main roads, so no one was around to hear us, but it still seemed incredibly exposed.

“It’s not that bad,” I finally replied. It sounded weak even to me.

“Marco, I was _there_ last night,” Jake said. “You’re on a first-name basis with a cook at a bar you can’t even get into. Your dad—”

I stopped walking, looking Jake straight in the eyes as I said, “My dad is going through some stuff. It’s _fine_.”

“Marco, it hasn’t been fine since the funeral and you know it.” Jake’s voice got that tone he used when he was trying to sound responsible, which was especially annoying because it actually worked. He grabbed my shoulders and leaned in, matching my gaze. “You shouldn’t be out at midnight in your neighborhood at all, much less to grab your drunk dad off a barstool.”

I shoved Jake away, squirming out of his grasp. Even though I knew he was right, anger burned like fire in my stomach, and I glared at him. “Look, it’s none of your business—”

“Really? What happens when some jerk tries to mug you both and your dad’s too drunk to even stand up?”

“I’ll morph gorilla and kick his butt,” I snapped back, knowing how dumb it sounded. To be honest, there had been a few times that worry had crossed my mind, but the worst we’d encountered so far was a particularly aggressive homeless man wanting some change.

“Oh yeah?” Jake countered. He crossed his arms and gave me a skeptical look. “What happens when your dad wonders how the hell his son is able to change into a gorilla?”

“Please. You said you were there last night. The last thing I’m worried about is my dad having a clear memory of what happens if I ever have to pull the morphing card.”

Jake’s expression only grew darker, and he quietly said, “That’s kind of my point, Marco.”

As much as I wanted to keep fighting about it, my willpower gave up under the weight of Jake’s concerned stare. Sighing, I said, “How exactly did you want this conversation to end, Jake?”

“What do you mean?”

The wind picked up as we stood there, blowing a few dead leaves across the empty field. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself, wishing I could be anywhere else right now. Jake didn’t say anything else, but just stood there and waited, comfortable in his warmer jacket.

“I mean exactly that,” I said, shrugging and staring at Jake like he was an idiot. “You talk to me about how bad my situation is, which trust me, I know. You think I like going to the bar and seeing him like that? But how is this conversation supposed to help? Do you think if we talk about our feelings my dad will suddenly figure his life out, stop drinking and get a steady job?”

“No,” Jake said reasonably, looking a bit abashed by my straightforward response. “But at least you could have someone to talk to.”

“About what? Like you said, man, this has been going on for almost three years now. I’m used to it,” I said.

“It hasn’t been this bad for three years. Like I said,” Jake mimicked, “You didn’t used to have to go get him from a bar stool at midnight. He was distant, but he had a job. He was getting better. Now it’s like he’s given up completely.”

I looked away from him, gazing across the field at the buildings in the distance. I could just barely see the bright yellow line of school buses that lined the back of the school in the mornings. We were probably going to be late at this point, and standing still out in the cold wind wasn’t exactly helping the matter.

Finally, I sighed and said, “Don’t you think we have more important things to be worried about right now?”

“More important than your life?” Jake asked.

“Oh, stop being melodramatic. At least, not about this. We have plenty to be melodramatic about, we really don’t need to add my terrible home life to it,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Besides, it’s pointless.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I reiterated. “Because there’s no solution to my problem, Jake. I can’t make my dad get a job or stop drinking. The best I can do is make sure he gets home safe and doesn’t get arrested. What else can I do? If he gets arrested or someone decides to call CPS on him, I get taken away and sent to a group home or something. And I hear they’re a lot stricter about sneaking out, so you’ll be down an Animorph. Is that really something we need right now?”

I hated throwing that card in his face. Jake didn’t like being the leader of our little superpowered rebel group, even if he was the best candidate for the job, and I didn’t like reminding him that our friendship now had the added burden of tactical warfare. But it was the truth, and he knew as well as I did that our group was too small and desperate to afford taking on any additional issues.

Jake stayed silent as he stared back at me, expression unchanging. In the distance, I heard the familiar sound of the warning bell, which pretty much confirmed that we would be late. After a long moment, during which Jake was clearly conflicted about his response, Jake finally sighed and let his arms drop down to his sides in defeat.

“This isn’t dropped,” he said, which only confirmed my success. “Because I really don’t like it. But there is something else.”

Any pleasure I might have taken from my victory immediately vanished upon hearing his tone. That wasn’t a happy tone. It was definitely a you-might-die tone. I’d heard that tone way, way too often over the past year.

“Oh no,” I said, almost wishing we could go back to the horrible personal questions.

“Oh yes,” Jake replied, digging into his jacket pocket and pulling out a folded sheet of paper. He began walking across the field again and I followed, grabbing the sheet from his hands. “I found this in Tom’s backpack this morning.

I unfolded the paper, feeling my stomach drop as I saw the symbol for The Sharing emblazoned in bold letters at the top of the page. It was a proposal paper for a joint initiative between The Sharing and some of the local religious institutions, discussing the positive benefits of working together on charity drives and other similar activities. Of course, the potential for a whole new flock of hosts wasn’t explicitly mentioned, but it didn’t take much of a leap to make the obvious connection.

“The Sharing is out recruiting again,” Jake explained as I continued scanning the proposal. “Only this time they’re focusing on the local churches.”

 

\--

 

That afternoon, I found myself in the disturbingly familiar confines of Cassie’s barn. I sat cross-legged on a hay-bale near the door, ostensibly standing watch but really just trying to stay clear of the scent of manure coming from the horse stalls. Cassie was busying herself shoveling out said manure, and Jake was trying to show off his muscles by helping her. Between the two of them, it was pretty obvious which one actually knew what she was doing.

Rachel was standing near the back of the barn, looking up as Tobias flew in. She grinned and waved to him, which had the added benefit of making her look like a crazy bird-lady for a brief moment. Shortly after Tobias landed, Ax peeked his head into the barn, wearing a pair of loose-fitting jeans and an old basketball t-shirt Jake had procured from the floor of his closet.

“Oh, good,” Cassie said, stepping back from the pile of horse crap and setting her shovel down. “My dad’s going to be coming back in an hour, so we have to make this quick.”

<Sorry we took so long,> Tobias said. He preened himself as he continued, <Ax couldn’t find his pants at first.>

“Well, I for one appreciate the extra effort,” I joked half-heartedly. Jake and I had talked about the possible dangers of this mission enough that anxiety was already building in my stomach. The added smell of the barn wasn’t making it much better.

Jake grinned. “All right, we’ll talk fast.” He brought out the same sheet of paper he had shown me this morning, reviewing the highlights of the potential operation. He finished by saying, “Now, this is just a proposal, but we can assume they’re going to start setting the stage now, if they haven’t already.”

“Well, what’s Tom going to think when he goes through his stuff and finds that you took his paper?” Rachel asked, eyeing the form with a frown.

“I only made a copy,” Jake explained, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Dad finally got the machine working.”

“Even if they haven’t started yet, we have to assume they’re going to go through with this,” said Cassie. “If they’re able to get a lock on the religious crowd, that’s a lot of new hosts for them. Not to mention a really good cover. Churches are always recruiting new members, and any changes to schedules or attitudes can easily be explained away as ‘finding the Lord’ or something like that.”

There was a long pause after Cassie spoke. Then Rachel said, “Kind of makes you wonder why they didn’t just start with churches in the first place, really.”

“Would probably have made it easier than making up The Sharing,” I agreed, shrugging. “Doesn’t sound as obviously dumb. Well, for most of them, at least.”

“Is a ‘church’ not what The Sharing is?” Ax asked, tilting his head. “A church is a group. Oop. Of people uniting under similar social values and traditions with the intent of bolstering the community. Munity. Tee. Is that not true? It is what my book said.”

<Not exactly,> Tobias said. <Religion isn’t a social club. Or, well – not entirely. It’s a lot more ritualistic and, uh, meaningful, I guess. I don’t know, my aunt and uncle were never big churchgoers.>

“It’s a ancient set of beliefs,” Jake explained further, looking a bit uncomfortable about having to clarify this particular topic. “Like, believing in a certain higher power, and following rules based on that belief. There are a lot of different reasons people believe in their specific religions, but it’s pretty widespread, and belief in a higher power is one of the key ideas across most of the religions. The Sharing isn’t the same thing – they don’t have the same way of promoting a belief system. It’s more like a community charity club.”

“Or a cult,” I added darkly.

“It does make a little sense why they wouldn’t use churches right away,” Cassie murmured. She had taken the proposal paper from Jake and was staring down at it, brow furrowed. “This way they don’t exclude any potential hosts by promoting one religion over another. See, they’re talking about targeting four different churches, and they’re all different branches.”

“Which ones?” I asked. I hadn’t bothered to read into the body of the paper after reading the opening paragraph this morning, but Cassie had flipped the sheet over to the backside and was scanning the details.

“Um, it looks like… All Saints Lutheran Church, Congregation Beth Israel—”

“I think our cousins go there,” Jake said, glancing at Rachel, who looked distinctly more irritated than she had previously. “It’s a bit further north of us.”

“Um, Aku Ba—Bakr Mas…jid? Aku – the Islamic Center,” Cassie stumbled on the foreign name, looking flustered as she reverted to its alternative name. “My mom has worked with them a few times to sponsor weekend trips to The Gardens for their youth groups, but I’ve never seen their official name.”

<What’s the last one?> Tobias asked, fluttering over to a different crossbeam to read over Cassie’s shoulder. <‘Our Lady of Guadalupe’? Where’s that?>

“About a mile from my house,” I said, heart sinking. I couldn’t help but remember my mother’s face, grinning down at as she pulled me toward the white stone building, where nicely-dressed people streamed in through the big mahogany doors. “I used to go to mass there on Sundays.”

“You? Mass?” Rachel asked, a playful sneer on her lips. “Please don’t try to tell me you’re religious.”

She was clearly waiting for me to snap something clever back at her about being Jewish or whatever, just to cut the tension, but I couldn’t quite will up the desire to spar with her. Instead, I just said, “It’s my mother’s old church. I haven’t been back since the funeral.”

And that pretty much killed any teasing energy left in the room. Funny how mentioning death can have that effect.

Jake was the only one who made eye contact after I made my comment, looking concerned. See, while everyone else was just undergoing the normal ‘he-mentioned-his-dead-mom’ discomfort, Jake was the only person besides me that knew the truth: my mother wasn’t actually dead. Rather, she was the host body for Visser 1, the main leader of the Yeerk forces. The Yeerk had faked her death, most likely to allow her to move about more freely, in a way she couldn’t do when she had a husband and son to fake-love.

I knew my real mom was still there, and saving her was the main reason I kept on with this crazy alien war. But given everything that was going on with my dad, it made sense that Jake would be worried. He had to be concerned that I was going to snap under the strain of dealing with too many personal problems. I understood, of course, but come on – which one of us didn’t have a mound of personal problems? It was considered a strange night if we _didn’t_ wake up screaming from a nightmare, which really said it all.

I just looked at Jake and subtly shook my head, glancing away when Tobias stared down with a piercing look. The last thing I needed was another person getting on my case about my home life, especially considering that Tobias’ own home life had been so crappy he actually got the better end of the deal living as a _hawk_ rather than stay with his uncle any longer.

“Well,” Cassie said awkwardly, shooting me an apologetic smile, “I hate to say this, but starting at Our Lady of Guadalupe might be our best bet. It’s the nearest to us, and if you have experience there, we can probably scope it out a little easier.”

<Not to mention, it’s the closest to The Sharing’s headquarters,> Tobias added. <If they’re going for a test case, it would be the easiest for them to start there, too.>

Rachel stayed uncomfortably silent, eyeing me. I could tell she wanted to just decide on a course of action and be done with it, but I had made the whole mission personal by talking about my mom. Jake stayed quiet too, though his posture seemed much less impatient about it. Ax, for his part, mostly just looked confused.

After a few moments of the tense atmosphere, wherein everyone was either looking at me or obviously trying _not_ to look at me, I rolled my eyes and asked, “Are you guys waiting for me to give the go-ahead to scope out my old church?”

“You’re the one who brought up your mom,” Rachel quipped back, somewhat defensively. It was better than her trying to be sympathetic to me, which I’m sure Rachel knew wouldn’t go over well anyway.

“Fine,” I said, smirking at her despite the growing pit of anxiety churning in my stomach. “If Xena wants me to say it, I’ll say it: let’s do it.”

Sometimes I really hate my life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave kudos and comment if you liked this chapter or have any concrit for me. I should be posting fairly regularly, though I'm not sure how many chapters it will be exactly quite yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In celebration of finishing a huge test today, I decided to post this chapter a day early. :) Also, just so everyone is tracking: in this story, I'm assuming that Marco didn't wind up cutting his hair (or at least, it's grown out since.) We can go with the rational explanation that his family really doesn't have the money right now, but honestly it's at least 83% motivated by my image of Marco as a young Carlos Valdes, who plays Cisco Ramon on The Flash.
> 
> Also, this chapter kicks in some of those warnings. Please see the end notes if you want a heads up.

 

 

We all decided the best time to low-key scope out the church was at Sunday mass, which wasn’t for another couple of days. I couldn’t decide whether I appreciated the break or not. Don’t get me wrong, taking some time off from crazy alien stuff was wonderful, but having the upcoming mission hanging over me only gave my anxiety more time to entertain new ways that I was going to die horribly.

But right now, I couldn’t think about that. I had a more pressing mission: buying some freaking groceries.

And the money jar was nearly empty.

“Dad?” I called out, frowning. I know the term ‘money jar’ sounds kind of ridiculous, given that the rest of the world was in the era of credit cards and investments and whatever else rich people do, but we literally used an old cookie jar. It was shaped like a ladybug and was a remnant from back when my mom decided she wanted to decorate the kitchen. Except now instead of cookies, Dad would put most of his cashed out paycheck in there for me to buy groceries and pay bills.

Not a perfect system, but we made it work. Though the first few months after my mother’s funeral had been a steep learning curve. I definitely had a couple of hungry nights before I realized that my dad wasn’t going to be helping me with this stuff.

“Dad?” I said again, walking toward the living room. My dad was still sitting on the couch, slumped down against the side as he watched the news in a sleepy stupor. “Hey, Dad, the jar is empty. I need money to buy groceries.”

There was no response.

I sighed, and then said louder, “Dad!”

Dad jerked, blinking wildly, and glanced over at me. “Huh? Oh. Uh, what?”

I repeated what I just said, eyeing the pile of dishes that had been accumulating on the side table all week. We probably needed more Dawn too, though at this rate I had maybe five dollars to spend.

“Oh, I’ll check my wallet… I think I might have some there,” Dad murmured, shifting around and pulling his wallet from his jacket, which was lying on the back of the couch. He peeked through it before pulling out a single $20 bill. “Here,” he said, holding it out.

I grabbed the money, narrowing my eyebrows in disbelief. “Dad, why do we only have $25 for groceries?” 

“It’s been a slow week,” Dad replied, looking askance. “The temp agency wasn’t able to get me a steady gig, and I couldn’t get as many hours stocking, and—”

“Dad,” I interrupted, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. “I know it’s been a slow week, but we still have to eat. And pay bills and stuff. That’s why the money is supposed to go in the jar _first_ , so you don’t spend it at the bar.”

“Right, yeah,” he said, waving a hand at me and nodding. He was already focused on some new news segment that had popped up, where they were exclaiming about a new Senate proposal. “Just get what you can with that.”

“I’m not going to be able to get much—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Dad said. “I’ll get another paycheck next week, it’ll be okay, don’t worry about it.”

I considered trying to argue with him. Just turn off the television and stand there, forcing him to listen to me until he _got_ it. But I’d done that before, and it always went the same way: he’d listen begrudgingly at first, and then it would abruptly get way too personal and he’d start getting upset again. My dad really isn’t the type to yell or get angry, so it would be a sad, pitiful kind of upset. It’s hard to yell at someone when they just look sad and agree with you.

The problem was, pointing this out to my dad wouldn’t make him change. Oh, he’d feel bad about it, and depending on how angry I got he would try to fix himself up for a couple days or so. But inevitably, we’d just wind up back here again in a few weeks.

Honestly, I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it. Not anymore. Not when half the nights I woke myself up screaming because I dreamt I was getting eaten alive by ants, or being gutted by a Hork-Bajir, or hearing the screams of the people held captive in the Yeerk Pool.

I always try to look at the world as being funny, because that makes some of the shitty parts a little easier to deal with. As I stood there, holding a limp $20 bill and watching my dad ignore me, I tried to picture how ridiculous this was. A grown man in his boxers getting lectured by his teenage son about money management, where they argued about how much money was supposed to be in the ladybug cookie jar. It was so stupid. Like an absurd skit they would show on SNL. The audience would watch and laugh because of the role reversal, and no one would think, _no wait, this is how it is_.

Actually, that was kind of amusing. The only thing the skit needed was a little superhero cape on the kid, because one thing funnier than a kid acting like a parent was the kid fighting a war on the side. They made comic books about that kind of stuff.

So instead of arguing with my dad, I just turned away and went back into the kitchen to grab the rest of the money. We still had some staples from my grocery run last month, so it wasn’t too dire. By this point, I was getting used to skipping lunch to help our supplies spread out. $25 could get us through the next two weeks if I was careful.

As I left the house, money and backpack in tow for the trip to the store, I considered how ridiculous the superhero costumes for the Animorphs would be. Skintight, and probably neon colored, because superhero stuff always was. No capes, but some kind of dorky logo across the chest. I bet we could figure out a way to use masks. We could even get a little mini mask for Tobias, which would be _hilarious_ and he would definitely never go for it.

By the time I got to the store, I had stopped thinking about my dad at all.

  

\--

  

“You know, I’m kind of surprised.”

“About what? You’ve been here before, remember?”

“Nah, not about the church. You haven’t said a single thing about this being insane yet. I think this might be a record for you.”

“Of course I haven’t. We’re going to mass. We’re going to listen to a priest talk about forgiveness and having faith. Given how much crap we’ve been through, this is arguably the sanest thing we’ve ever done.”

By the time Sunday rolled around, we had all decided that it made the most sense for Jake and I to scope out the church in person, since I had a history there and Jake had attended once before. Rachel and Cassie planned to check out the back rooms in morph while Tobias and Ax kept watch outside. Ax had acquired a European Starling (according to Cassie) in order to avoid any potential bird-watchers from wondering why two birds of prey were chilling near each other. Tobias, for his part, was perched on a rooftop a block away.

As for Jake and I, we were dressed in our best nice-but-not-fancy clothes, which pretty much just equated to slacks and a button-down shirt for both of us.

We walked through the front doors, which were propped open and lined with an usher on each side handing out bulletins. As soon as we cleared the entrance and entered the lobby, I leaned over to Jake and dramatically whispered, “ _We’re in_.”

Jake stifled a laugh and then gave me his best attempt at a reproving stare. It didn’t work.

“I kind of feel like we should be wearing sunglasses and suits,” I continued, looking around the lobby with a sense of fond familiarity. The last memory I had of this place was at my mother’s funeral service, but that whole event was different – there were somber decorations everywhere, and pictures of my mother, and people kept coming up to my dad and I and saying how sorry they were for our pain.

It wasn’t like that now. Today was just a normal Sunday morning. People were congregating in little groups throughout the lobby, calling out greetings and exclaiming over this and that. Little kids stood awkwardly to the side and sometimes ran around, dressed in the frilly dresses and tiny sweater-vests of Catholic propriety. There was a table set out to the side with coffee and doughnuts, monitored by a pair of bored teenage assistants.

I swear, just looking at the scene made me feel like I was seven again, wearing a stiff collared shirt and whining at my mom to let me get a doughnut.

“Sunglasses?” Jake repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Somehow I feel like the Secret Service look might interfere with our low-key detective work.”

“Or maybe people will be so intimidated that they’ll immediately give up their secrets,” I joked back. “No one argues with the Secret Service. We could grab some walkie-talkies and give each other code names. It’d be super mysterious.”

“Or we could just go to church,” Jake said, glancing around. He looked perplexed at the walls, where various pictures of the Virgin Mother and baby Jesus were displayed. “These guys sure do have a thing for Jesus, don’t they?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure ‘having a thing for Jesus’ is kind of the Catholic motto,” I replied drily.

“I’m just saying, we’re not nearly this intense about Moses.”

I shrugged. “Eh, go big or go home.”

<Are you two finished goofing off, or are you going to actually scope the place out?> Rachel’s voice abruptly sounded in my head.

“Right,” Jake said, face slipping into its serious mask while I glanced around to see if I could locate Rachel in fly morph. He examined the bulletin he had grabbed at the entrance. “Service is starting pretty soon, and there doesn’t seem to be anything weird right off the bat—”

“Look at the back pages, they usually have any announcements or upcoming events listed at the end.”

Everyone in the lobby started to move into the chapel as Jake flipped to the end of the bulletin. I grabbed his arm and started moving in time with the crowd, keeping us from running into anyone while he read. We snagged a couple seats on the far right side of the pews, away from the majority of people crowded around the inner areas. Organ music played from somewhere up in the balcony as everyone settled into their seats, still chatting with one another.

“Look here,” Jake whispered, eyeing a pair of college students seated two rows up to ensure they weren’t paying attention. He pointed at a small announcement on the back page, under the Fellowship section.

“Community Outreach Planning meeting?” I read, frowning.

“There’s nothing else mentioning any kind of joint initiative with The Sharing,” Jake said, passing me the bulletin to double-check. “That’s probably our best bet for when they’re going to bring up the whole proposal.”

I started scanning the document myself, but at that moment, the organ music drew to a close. One of the priests up front called for the congregation to rise, signaling the start of mass.

The service went pretty much as I remembered. We stood up. We sat down. We sang some hymns. I got to laugh at Jake trying to sing, which is always a good time. The sermon was kind of long and centered on Herod and the plight of the Jews, probably because Christmas was only a month gone. 

Toward the end, they made the call for communion, and I stood up automatically before drawing still. It had been a long time since I had been back to church, and I wasn’t even really _back_ , exactly. I don’t think it counts if you only attend church as an undercover plot to fight aliens.

Although, who knows? Maybe God really hates aliens.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Jake whispered, looking around at the people slowly filing out of our row. The usher at the end of the aisle was looking at me expectantly, now that I was standing. “Should I come too?”

“No, you have to be confirmed,” I hissed back, abruptly making my decision as the usher gestured for me to exit. “Wait here, I’m just going to take communion and we can leave.”

Jake made a face at me, but stayed where he was seated. “Remember the time,” he said, tapping his wrist as though he was wearing a watch. The other Animorphs had been in morph for nearly and hour and a half by that point.

“I’ll be quick,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

I slowly followed the queue up to the altar, feeling awkward as I looked around and vaguely recognized a couple faces. No one seemed to place me, but I wasn’t trying to make eye contact or anything. Besides, the last time anyone had seen me, I was two years younger and even shorter than I was now. I wasn’t too surprised that no one pointed me out as the same kid that had attended a few years earlier.

By the time I arrived at the altar, I was feeling pretty good about my incognito status. Which is of course when someone finally recognized me.

“Ah, Marco,” greeted the last priest in the altar line. He was holding a chalice of wine in his broad, leathery hands. “It has been so long since I’ve seen you here. Bless you for coming to mass.”

“Uh,” I said, caught off guard. At first, I couldn’t place the priest, but then he grinned at me and I suddenly remembered what he looked like lecturing me about running in the church basement. I swallowed, still tasting the piece of bread from the other priest. “Father Martinez, um, good morning.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” He held out the chalice and offered, “The blood of Christ.”

“Amen,” I replied, sipping the bitter wine and making the required gesture.

“I hope to see to you again, Marco,” Father Martinez said fondly, looking me square in the eyes before turning to the next person in line. I felt frozen in place for a second, feeling guilty despite the lack of any accusation in his tone. I paused for so long that the older lady behind me bumped into me as she turned away, and I had to stammer out a quick apology.

Feeling more awkward than I had in awhile, I hurried back to my seat. Everyone else was filtering back to their seats, but I just looked at Jake and jerked my head toward the back. Jake got up without needing any more prompting, snatching up the bulletin and following me out of the chapel.

Maybe it was panic at being recognized, but I really didn’t want to spend another moment in the church.

We met with everyone at a park two blocks away from the church. Tobias called out to Cassie and Rachel as soon as Jake and I walked out, and we waited near a small patch of trees for everyone to arrive.

“So what’d you guys find out?” Jake asked, after sharing the news about the upcoming planning meeting.

“Nothing much,” Cassie said. She held out a hand for the bulletin, and started glancing through it once Jake passed it over.

“Yeah, it seems like a normal church,” Rachel confirmed, shrugging. “No expanded basements, no weird alien tech…”

<Ax and I definitely saw a couple confirmed Controllers, though,> Tobias said, perched on a tall oak tree nearby. <I don’t know their names, but I’ve seen them at a few Sharing events.>

<It is possible that our prediction was correct,> Ax added. <The Yeerks may be focusing their initial efforts on this institution.>

“Unless they’re scouting all of the churches and temples,” Rachel said. “It’s not like we’ve checked them all out ourselves.”

“Well, regardless, we can’t keep scoping this place out as humans,” I said. “Or at least, not me. I already had someone recognize me. Which isn’t a huge deal, because it’s not like it’s weird for me to be there, but if the Yeerks are interested in that place, I definitely don’t want to be on their radar.”

“I agree,” Jake confirmed. “It doesn’t look good to have any of us start showing up regularly.”

“Well, we might have another option,” Cassie said, holding out the bulletin. It was flipped to the very last page, where Next Week’s Worship was written on top. Underneath the headline, the schedule for the upcoming week was laid out in neat bullet points. “It seems that the church has a longstanding partnership with the Humane Society and SPCA. Next week they’re running a Pets Day and Open House Adoption Event.”

We all stared at her.

<What do you mean by ‘adoption event’?> Ax asked, jumping from his perch to land on Rachel’s shoulder. It made her look like a goddamn Disney Princess in spandex. I wished I could take a picture just to see how annoyed she’d get.

“It’s a day where the different animal organizations show up to try and get people to adopt stray animals,” Cassie explained patiently. “Normally, they focus on dogs and cats, especially young ones.”

Looking amused, Rachel said, “Wait, so you’re saying we need to morph adorable puppies and kittens? To fight aliens?”

“Yep,” Cassie replied, not bothering to suppress her grin.

<Finally, a morph that won’t be disturbing and awful,> Tobias added, sounding relieved.

“Don’t speak so quickly,” I said, though I couldn’t help but grin as well. “Knowing our luck, there will be a way to make it awful, and we will find it.”

“It is our way,” Jake agreed somberly, and managed to last a couple seconds before cracking up.

 

-

 

We parted ways shortly after coming up with a tentative plan of attack. We decided to split up: Rachel was going to research the worship times for the different areas of worship, and work with Tobias and Ax to monitor them for any known Controller activity. Cassie, Jake, and I would check out the meeting at Our Lady of Guadalupe, but this time in morph. Given the success of the fly and bird morphs, we figured that was our best option. 

Thankfully, the meeting itself wasn’t until Wednesday. I went home after mass and made a plain PB&J before crashing on the couch for a couple hours. My dad had picked up an afternoon shift stocking boxes, so I had the chance to relax a little bit.

Eventually, I got up and half-heartedly did some dishes. I contemplated doing my homework and played some video games instead. Did some laundry. Sorted through some old files on my computer while I listened to music.

By around seven, I was starting to wonder where my dad was. The afternoon shift was only from 11-6pm, and he normally didn’t take on double-shifts. I kept looking at the clock for no reason, as though that might make the time change.

To distract myself, I finally sat down and did my homework, which was about as exhausting and pointless as one would imagine. I have no idea when I would ever need to know how to use quadratic equations, and bombing the pop quiz in history had left me with a required two-page paper on Joseph McCarthy. I actually liked the Life Science assignment, though. We had to write a couple paragraphs describing a specific animal from each of the six basic animal groups.

Let me tell you: nothing helps your ability to describe animals like actually _being_ the animals.

I chose the gorilla as my mammal. I don’t know if my teacher was going to appreciate the two paragraphs devoted to how much ass a gorilla can kick, but I sure loved writing it.

By the time I finished the last assignment, it was nearly 10pm, and my dad was nowhere in sight.

Now, at first I entertained the idea that my dad had taken a second shift. But I know my dad. He might not be the most attentive guy, but he knows well enough to give me a call if he was going to be waylaid at work. It had happened before, and he hadn’t missed a call yet.

Besides, if he was already this late? That generally only meant one thing.

Dad never remembered to call once he started drinking.

Sighing, I grabbed my hoodie from the back of the sofa and started the mile-long trek to the bar.

The cold wind from earlier in the week had not subsided, and had in fact been joined by a light drizzle. I felt like I should be on the cover of Emo Kids Monthly or something; just some random kid walking down the street in a black hoodie, hands in pockets and trying to avoid eye contact with the other residents. Granted, I was trying to avoid getting mugged rather than singing a song about my feelings, but I’m sure the image looked the same.

It was 10:30 by the time I got to the bar. To my surprise, my dad was already waiting outside, looking happily buzzed as he stood next to a lamppost, illuminated in its circle of light.

Unfortunately, three other guys were waiting at the curb along with him, two of them smoking.

My dad wasn’t smoking, but he was toying with a cigarette in his hand and looked like he was considering it. He gave up smoking back before Mom died, as some kind of anniversary gift, but apparently he hadn’t given up thinking about it.

I don’t know what made me hesitate, but I stopped walking about twenty feet away from them and just watched. The guys looked younger than my dad, but definitely in their mid-twenties or so. One was a chubby Latino guy who kept grinning and laughing at his shorter friend, who had sleeve tattoos and looked like he was probably a marginally decent athlete. The third guy sported some unfortunate-looking facial hair, as though he had tried to craft a style and had instead wound up with a half a mustache and some patchy spots of goatee.

They hung out on the street corner like they owned it. I’m not easily intimidated, especially not anymore, and these guys definitely didn’t hold a candle to some of the evil I’ve seen. However, it wasn’t exactly fear I was feeling. More like trepidation. It was like seeing hyenas in a pack gearing up for a hunt.

Despite feeling a strong urge to just avoid those guys, I didn’t have much choice in the matter: my dad was hanging out with them, regardless of the fact that he was clearly at least fifteen years too old to be affecting the same type of attitude.

In moments like this, I couldn’t help but feel changed by my new role as a guerrilla fighter in a dumbass alien war. Because while every other part of me was saying, “Just avoid this stupid situation, your dad can handle himself,” there was a small voice saying, “Who even cares? You’ve fought and _killed_ way scarier things than three random dudes with cocky attitudes. Just go kick their ass.”

That small voice always sounded like Rachel. I have no idea why I ever listened to it, and yet, there I was, walking up to the lit-up portion of the curb.

“Dad,” I called. My dad was busy shoving the cigarette pack back in his pocket and didn’t hear me, but the other guys did.

Attempted-Goatee looked over at me, giving me a look that felt way creepier than it should have. He laughed, saying, “I don’t think he wants to be your daddy, sweetheart.”

“What?” I asked, making a face. What the hell did that even mean? I shook my head at him, saying, “No, that’s literally my dad. I’m his son.” Then, to my father, I said again, “Dad! Let’s go.”

Finally, Dad looked up, and he grinned with drunken brightness. “Hey, Marco! You’re here!”

“Woah, Petey, this kid is your son?” said the chubby Latino guy, leaning in and looking at my face. “Dude, are you sure? He doesn’t look a thing like you!”

“Are you sure he’s your _son_?” Goatee said, and this time he definitely gave me a leer. “He looks like a girl. His hair’s long and everything.”

“Ha,” the muscular guy added, slurring a bit. “Yeah, look at his face. Are you wearing mascara and shit?”

“What?” I asked, mostly out of sheer bafflement. Don’t get me wrong, I’d heard that kind of crap before – but I’d heard it from other dumbass kids in my grade. Hearing comments from random adult men just felt weird. Or, in the case of Creepy Goatee Dude, really gross. “No, you moron. I’m just here to get my dad home.”

Luckily, even though my dad was drunk, he was still my dad. He heard the comment about my appearance and frowned, snapping at Goatee, “Shut up, Lex, that’s my son you’re talking about.”

“I’m just saying,” Creepy-Lex said, sounding unapologetic.

“He really doesn’t look a thing like you, man,” Chubby Guy reiterated. “Is his mom Chicana?”

Unsurprisingly, the mention of my mom only made my dad’s mood worsen. He stepped forward, standing between the group of guys and I. “It’s none of your business,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. His grip was tight. “I have to get going. I’ll see you around.”

The guys called out some mild objections, but Dad had already turned away, face set in a cool mask as he guided me away from the group. He didn’t seem as out of it as he normally did, but it was only 10pm. Maybe I had caught him before he passed his limit.

We walked at a steady pace for about two blocks before my dad slowed, slightly unsteady on his feet. I adjusted his grip so he leaned on me a bit more and said, “So, who the hell were those guys?”

“Language,” Dad said, though it sounded more like a habit than anything. He sighed. “Just some guys from the bar. I ran into them the other night and we hung out. They just like to play around – they’re not that bad.”

“Julius doesn’t like them,” I replied, thinking back to the night in question.

“Who?”

“The cook at the bar,” I said. “Big black guy? He says they’re bad news.”

Dad shook his head as he followed my lead across the street. “They just have some attitude. They aren’t that bad. Just going through some rough times, you know?” 

That belied my initial bad feeling and their weird comments, but I held my tongue. My dad actually seemed kind of attentive tonight, unlike the spacy routine he had pulled before. I didn’t want to waste it talking about some random creeps he met at the bar.

“So how was work today?” I said, changing the subject. Dad didn’t say anything, and it took a few moments for me to realize his silence was deliberate. “Oh. What happened?”

Dad sighed, slouching against my shoulder like all the energy had gone out of his body. He replied, “They’re cutting hours. All temporary workers are suspended until further notice.”

Which essentially meant that Dad had lost another job, at least until the temporary workers got their hours back. His desire to go to the bar after his shift today suddenly made a bit more sense.

“Well, uh, that’s fine,” I said, though the encouragement sounded pretty lack-luster. “The temp agency can find you something. It’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dad said. He didn’t sound particularly convinced.

We walked on for a few more minutes in silence. The drizzle had picked up to a light rain, and my hoodie was starting to get soaked through. Dad seemed to have lost all traces of his earlier good mood, as though the very mention of work had sucked it all away again.

By the time we neared our apartment complex, Dad and I were both soggy and ready to get out of the rain. Our complex has outward facing doors, kind of like a motel, so there was no relief from the rain until we were actually at our place. Once inside, I immediately took off my hoodie and hung it on the hook, using a marginally dry spot to pat some remaining droplets off my face.

“So,” Dad said as he hung his coat carefully next to mine. “Um. You know, we haven’t actually spent a lot of time together lately.”

I was halfway to the bathroom by the time he spoke, so the comment took me by surprise. Still, I turned and said, “Yeah… I guess not. We’ve both been pretty busy.”

Note that I did not add _because you’re wasting your life away at the bar_. Given how grumpy I felt at the time, it was a victory. Especially since it wasn’t entirely his fault. I wasn’t exactly full of free time either.

“Y’know, I haven’t seen Die Hard in awhile,” Dad continued. He gave me a half-smile, shrugging. “I could nuke some popcorn.”

I glanced at the microwave clock in the kitchen. It was a quarter past eleven, and I could feel my eyes drooping. But I knew an olive branch when I saw one. And when I looked back at my dad, his hopeful face was already starting to drop, like he assumed I was going to say no. I figured it was a transition he was all too familiar with these days.

“Yeah, that sounds great,” I said, forcing a grin past my irritation. “Just let me change into something less wet.”

“You bet,” Dad replied. He gave a little smile at his rhyme, throwing up half-hearted jazz hands. It was stupid and childish, and despite all that, I laughed at how ridiculous he looked.

Honestly, sometimes you have to take what you can get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW - Marco gets sexually harassed by some older men while he's picking up his dad at the bar. Not explicit, but insinuating.
> 
> Please feel free to comment if you wish! Also, if you'd like, I go by panaili on tumblr. I'd love to be friends with more Animorphs fans. :)


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

 

The days leading up to our stake out of the church meeting were long and exhausting. Dad’s mood had taken a good turn over the last few days, which, while encouraging, was hell on my sleep schedule. Dad’s mood swings always came at such random times.

During the past couple of days, I had watched every single Die Hard movie with my dad, forgotten two homework assignments, half-assed five other assignments, bombed one quiz, and fell asleep in three classes. It was a miracle I hadn’t gotten detention, but I’m pretty sure half the teachers had graduated from exasperation to full-on pity at some point over the last year.

I’m honestly just waiting for one of them to try swooping in to save me from my family situation. Maybe they’ll make a Lifetime made-for-TV movie about it.

In any case, the teachers weren’t really a big concern of mine.

<Marco,> Ax said, tilting his head and twisting his stalk eyes to stare down at me. <Are you feeling unwell? The skin under your eyes appears to be darkened.>

When _Ax_ notices stuff like that, it is definitely a bigger concern of mine.

“Yeah, Marco,” Jake said, raising his eyebrows with an annoying, smug expression. “What’s going on?"

I glared at him. Then, to Ax, I said, “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

<Does lack of sleep often affect appearance in humans?> Ax asked.

“When it’s severe, yeah,” Jake replied for me. 

“We’ve all been there,” Cassie interjected diplomatically, giving me a forced smile. “I’m sure Marco is just having a bad week.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” I repeated. My jaw clenched around the words.

“You fell asleep in two classes today alone,” Jake said, giving me a look that made it clear he wasn’t buying it. “I’m just saying, maybe you should—”

“Look, I’m here and ready to get my spy on,” I said, my voice a little louder than I intended. “Can we stop investigating the mystery of Marco not paying attention in class? It’s not like I’m Rachel here – I make sleeping in class an art form. Some teachers just have the perfect monotone voice, okay?”

We stood together in a grove nearby Ax’s scoop, enjoying the remaining daylight from the first warm day in nearly two weeks. Rachel and Tobias were planning to meet Ax there after scoping out the synagogue, so that all three could monitor the larger Islamic Center together. In the meantime, the rest of us were plotting our game plan for spying on the joint planning meeting.

Or at least we were, before I made the mistake of yawning and drawing everyone’s attention to my exhaustion.

“Okay,” Jake said, drawing out the second syllable and continuing to eye me. “Well, if Marco can’t be convinced to go take a nap—”

“Stop,” I said, matching his gaze.

“—then we should get going. Today’s just recon anyway, so there shouldn’t be any big issues. The church has a lot of open air spaces, and even if the Controllers are keeping an eye out for animals, they can’t control the area. I flew over it on my way here and there are plenty of animals already in the vicinity. We shouldn’t have any issues with cover.”

“Aren’t they meeting inside, though?” Cassie asked.

“Sometimes they hold meetings outside,” I explained. “But usually that’s during the summer.”

“Already thought of that,” Jake said, grinning. “The windows to their main conference room are closed, but one of them is getting repaired. We should be able to listen through the plastic covering the broken window.”

“Wow, listen to him,” I said in aside to Cassie. “So in charge. Such planning. He’s just the epitome of masculine heroism. You should totally get with that.”

Cassie blushed, but recovered quickly and asked, “Are you trying to hit on Jake for me, Marco?”

I laughed at the comeback, joking, “Well, someone has to. That was just so manly. I feel like I should swoon.”

“Shut up,” Jake grumbled with a good-natured grin. He looked over at Ax and said, “Are you and the others good to go as soon as they get back?”

<Yes, Prince Jake,> Ax replied. <It is unlikely that we will run into any difficulties, either.>

“All right then,” said Jake. “Time to head out.”

Morphing into a bird is always interesting, especially when Cassie is around. She’s weirdly artistic about her morphing in a way that even Ax says is talented. While Jake and I started shrinking and distorting our features in gross new shapes, Cassie let a ripple of feathers cover her body before beginning to slowly shrink down. It was all elegant and graceful while Jake and I resembled rejected Claymation creatures.

We had done our bird morphs often enough that it felt almost as familiar to me as turning into the gorilla. Within moments, Cassie and I were ospreys while Jake was a peregrine falcon. The plan was to fly to the church in morph to avoid having to hide our clothes, and then morph into less conspicuous forms in the alley out back.

The initial part of the plan went off without a hitch. With Cassie keeping watch overhead, Jake and I demorphed and immediately began to change into our spy forms: for Jake, a copy of the same European Starling that Ax had morphed, and for me, a common housefly. This change was somewhat less familiar and infinitely more disgusting. Especially when I started off my morph by growing human-sized bristles all over my body.

“Oh, gross,” Jake said, making a face. It appeared to stick that way for a moment before a huge beak popped out of the center, and he squawked at me. 

I gestured back to him with one of my increasingly stick-like arms. “You were saying?”

<You guys only have about another two minutes of safety,> Cassie called from above, gently reminding us of the time crunch.

By the time she finished speaking, I was already too far along to speak normally. My eyes ballooned out into huge disks, making the world around me shift into a twisted kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. Wings burst out of my back as I shrunk even further down to the ground, and my tongue began whipping out to taste the air. Once I finally settled into the complete fly form, I glanced around and tried to make sense of the new forms of vision and smell, which were incredibly different from anything to which my human brain was accustomed. 

<Wow,> Jake said nearby. <This bird is weird compared to the falcon. It’s more like the lizard.>

<It’s not a bird of prey,> Cassie replied. <Starlings are foragers. They usually travel in groups and mostly eat seeds and insects, I think.>

<That makes sense. Marco is looking pretty tasty right now.> Jake joked.

<Oh, ha ha,> I said, looking around to see where Jake was standing. <I’ll have you know that I _oh my god_ this fly is terrified of you, what the hell.>

Jake was a relatively small bird, all things considered. Though the fly’s eyesight could only interpret this through distorted fragments, I knew from seeing Ax’s European Starling morph that Jake was a glossy dark brown with a spray of white spots freckling the feathers on his back. As a human, the starling looked just like a common bird, but as a fly, Jake was the living incarnate of death itself.

Jake chirped and hopped toward me. <Oh, are you afraid I’m hungry?> he teased. 

<Not cool, dude!> I said, jumping up and buzzing away from him. I perched on a nearby box and watched him in his terrifying avian glory.

<No, come back,> Jake argued, laughing.

<The meeting starts in a few minutes,> Cassie interjected, sounding like she wanted to roll her eyes. <Maybe you guys could get into position?>

<That depends,> I wagered. <Will you promise to eat Jake if he eats me?>

<Of course,> said Cassie serenely.

<Traitor,> Jake accused playfully, before ruffling his feathers and glancing up at the sky. <It’ll probably be easiest for you to latch onto my feathers while I fly to the window.>

<Yeah, sure,> I said, already flying over to join him. <Just as long as you don’t get in the mood for a mid-flight snack.>

<I’m good for now,> Jake said. He twisted his head around to watch as I landed between his wings, playfully tapping his beak in a biting motion. <Maybe later.>

<You’re the worst.> I said flatly. <Let’s go.>

Jake flapped his wings and took off for the sky, creating a tiny whirlwind of air that threatened to throw me off. Luckily, flies were no exception to the strength of insects. I used my tiny fly legs to brace myself against Jake’s feathers as I burrowed down against his back. Considering the circumstances, I was as secure as I could be.

It still felt like clinging to the outside of a spaceship as it launched, though. I figured it was just another unasked for bucket list item that I could cross off. _“Have you ever clung to a songbird as a fly while it took off?”_ / “ _Well_ , actually—”

Luckily, it didn’t take long to reach the window. The wind died down significantly as Jake landed on the stone framing. Through my strange fragmented vision, I could see shimmery plastic lining the inside of the window.

<There’s a crack along the bottom lining of the plastic,> Jake said, hopping closer. <I won’t be able to get through, but you can.>

<Will you be able to hear from here?> I asked, buzzing off his feathers to land down by the crack. <I mean, I can understand people as a fly and all, but my range is shit.>

<Don’t worry, I can hear everyone fine,> Jake replied. <They’re starting to come in now. I figure it’d be best if we had someone close to the Controllers themselves.>

<You’re looking for a tall Asian woman with dark brown hair and a kind of burly-looking guy with a blond buzzcut,> Cassie informed. <I saw them coming in about five minutes ago.>

<How do you know that’s them?>

<I recognize the girl from one of the Sharing events awhile back,> Cassie said. <Besides, they stand out – they’re the only ones in the room wearing suits.>

<Got ‘em,> Jake said, creeping forward and poking his head down by the crack in the plastic. My fly instincts freaked out at the sight of a bird so close to me, but I resisted the urge to jump away. <They’re sitting along this wall, all the way to the right. Do you think you’ll be able to find them?>

<Depends. Do they have a helpful heap of garbage right beside them?>

<If you count a half-eaten Subway sandwich as garbage, then yes.>

<Hm, I guess so,> I said, ducking through the crack in the plastic and beginning my journey toward the right. <Wait. What kind of Subway sandwich?>

<Looks like pastrami,> Cassie answered. She may have been perched 100 feet away, but that was nothing to an osprey.

<Oh, yeah, definitely garbage. Meatball sub is the only quality option.>

<Gross,> Jake said. <Gotta go BLT.>

<What? No! How can you betray the sacred messiness of the meatball sub?>

<If I wanted something that tasted like spaghetti, I’d just get spaghetti. I don’t need it on a sandwich. Cassie, back me up.>

<I actually side with Marco on this one,> Cassie admitted, laughing. <Meatball or bust.>

<HaHA!> I crowed. <Cassie, forget what I said earlier. You’re clearly meant to be with me.>

<Sure, Marco,> Cassie joked. <Also, you’re going to need to fly more to the right.>

I adjusted my course and flew on, making sure to stay relatively low. We had learned the hard way that humans would automatically swat at flies when given the chance, and flying anywhere near eye level was just asking for trouble. The trouble only doubled when dealing with Yeerks, who had a tendency to kill animals on sight by this point, thanks to our influence.

The male Controller was standing and schmoozing with someone as I approached. I took the opportunity to land on his black briefcase, which he held clutched in his left hand.

<Annnnd another perfect landing,> I cheered as I landed.

<Just stay out of sight,> Jake said, already switching to his leader voice. <Cassie? What’s our time look like?>

<The meeting is only an hour long, so you guys should be fine to last the whole way through. I’m keeping an eye on the clock across the street. I will need to demorph before you, but this rooftop is pretty isolated. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.> 

<All right,> Jake said. <It looks like they’re getting started.>

I couldn’t really sense that much in this morph, though I did notice some shifting as Dude Controller sat down and set his briefcase on the floor. The general sounds of scuffle began to die down, and from the front of the room a low droning noise started, just far enough away to be out of my range.

Figuring it might be awhile before the Controllers got a chance to speak, I settled in, hiding under the handle of the briefcase. There really wasn’t much to do but wait.

And wait.

And wait.

After awhile, I asked, <So, what exactly is going on? Other than a few clear bits from the people close by, it pretty much sounds like a Peanuts teachers’ conference from here.>

<I’m not sure,> Jake said. <I mean, they’re talking about community events and all that, but no one’s mentioned The Sharing at all.>

<The Controllers are starting to look annoyed,> Cassie added.

<As in, “know-it-alls not getting called on in class” annoyed, or “go crazy and kill everyone” annoyed?> I asked. It was good to be prepared for these kinds of things.

<More like “teenage girls getting iced out of the cool clique” annoyed,> Cassie answered after a slight pause. <Like when Becky Thompson and her friends decided I wasn’t cool enough to eat lunch with them anymore in sixth grade.>

<That was a very specific example, Cassie,> I said wryly. <Are we still bitter about that?>

Cassie laughed. <Maybe a little, but Rachel dumped her entire carton of chocolate milk on Becky’s head, so I was justly avenged.>

<That is ridiculously easy to picture,> I said, mostly to Jake.

<I’d be surprised if Rachel _didn’t_ do something like that, > Jake agreed.

After that exchange, we all fell quiet, waiting for something more to happen. Periodically, Jake or Cassie would update that a bunch of people were definitely talking and exchanging ideas, but the Controllers hadn’t said a single word yet. Nor did anyone appear to be trying to engage them.

Before I knew it, everyone was standing up and moving around again, which – no. Was that all?

<What’s going on?> I asked.

<They’re… done,> Jake answered, sounding just as confused as I felt. <The head priest dismissed everyone.>

<But they didn’t say anything!> Cassie said. <Why did they even come to the meeting?>

<Hold on,> I said, jumping off the briefcase and buzzing upward. I hugged the angle of Dude Controller’s arm and wound up perching just under the collar of his suit jacket. <I’m staying on this guy. Maybe he’ll say something more to Thing 2 once they’re outside.>

<The priest is walking toward them,> Jake reported. <You might not have to wait that long.>

Sure enough, the low droning from before came on again, but this time its owner was close enough to understand.

“Mr. Gibson, Ms. Adams,” the low voice said. I crawled out just far enough to get a few more visuals, and I quickly realized that the speaker was Father Martinez. “I’m terribly sorry our time ran short, but that’s how these things are sometimes.”

“Of course,” Gibson replied. “Although, The Sharing _has_ been trying to set up this proposal for over a month now, Father.”

“It’s almost enough to make us feel unwanted,” the female Controller, Adams, added. She was clearly trying to pass it off as light-hearted, though the edge to her tone belied her attempts. “Especially since I noticed our proposal was not on the agenda at all.”

“Hm,” Father Martinez demurred. “Well, perhaps we can address it at next week’s meeting, if you both are still interested.”

“I don’t think you understand, Father,” Gibson said, stepping forward. He was a good head taller than Father Martinez, but the older priest didn’t react to the intimidating gesture. “The Sharing wants to start this initiative as soon as possible. We are very eager to work with your church.”

“I’m sure you are,” Father Martinez said. Even with my disjointed vision, I could tell he wasn’t smiling. “But I cannot simply cast aside other church obligations to address your club’s desires. It will be addressed in due time.”

<Wow,> said Jake. <Is it just me, or is this priest stone-cold right now?>

<Not just you,> Cassie echoed.

<It’s kind of weird,> I said. <I mean, it’s been awhile since I’ve been here, but I always remembered Father Martinez as being really friendly. I mean, when he wasn’t yelling at me for breaking the rules.>

Now that I was thinking about it, more memories came flooding back. Father Martinez laughing as he watched families compete in a three-legged race for Easter, and reading bible stories slowly and deliberately for a group of young kids. The images seemed at odds with the severe older man standing before me.

No matter my thoughts, the two Controllers clearly did not enjoy being put off.

“Father,” Adams said, sounding as though she was speaking through gritted teeth. “Are you sure we can’t come back sooner than next week? We would really like the opportunity to pitch our idea. Our club President is expecting an answer.”

“All new initiatives must be put to a vote,” Father Martinez replied coolly. “Even if you pitched it to me separately, I would not be able to approve it unless we had majority approval.”

“Surely, as the senior leader, you could—” Adams began, but Father Martinez cut her off.

“No, Ms. Adams, I could not,” he said sharply. “I may have a lot of influence, but no one has unilateral power in my church. Not even me.”

“Well,” Gibson interjected, adopting a softer tone. “Could we stop by before the next meeting and pitch the idea to you anyway? We will wait for next Wednesday for the official vote, of course, but just so we can get your feedback…”

The counter-proposal weighed in the air for a long moment as Father Martinez eyed Gibson. Finally, he gave a small sigh and replied, “That sounds reasonable. We have a charity event this weekend. Perhaps I can fit in a meeting with you both during the event.”

“Oh, that sounds great,” Adams said, with enthusiasm just bright enough to sound fake. “Thank you for your time, Father.”

“Of course,” Father Martinez replied coolly, already turning away. “And bless you for your interest.” He stepped aside and walked off, footsteps fading from my ability to hear.

<Ooookay,> I said, <So he is not a fan of theirs.> 

“Human _filth_ ,” Adams spat quietly, glaring in the direction Father Martinez had vanished. I could just barely see her from my position on the jacket. “How _dare_ he dismiss us—”

“Quiet,” Gibson interrupted. “Wait until we’re in the car.”

<Looks like the feeling is mutual,> Jake said.

The two Controllers gathered their things in silence and made their way to the door.

<I’m going to stay with them. We need to get more information,> I said.

Of the three of us, I was the only one who could reasonably follow the Controllers into their car. I had managed to maneuver around to the back of Gibson’s shirt collar without being spotted, but being as tiny as an eraser for a pencil helped with that. I doubted Jake would be able to get away with such close monitoring.

<You only have 40 more minutes left in morph,> Cassie said, sounding worried. <I need to demorph pretty soon, so I’m going to be out of action for a bit.>

<We need to know what they want,> I countered. <40 minutes should give me enough time.>

<Good call,> said Jake, making a snap decision. <Do it. Stay out of sight and be careful.>

I hovered under the collar of Gibson’s suit jacket, clinging to the woven fibers and trying to stay as motionless as possible to avoid detection. There was a sudden gust of air as they exited the building, but my grasp on his jacket held firm.

Once outside, Adams stopped caring about maintaining her cover.

“This is ridiculous,” she hissed. “We’ve spent a _month_ trying to orchestrate this plan, and he just _dismisses_ us? What is he trying to prove?”

“I couldn’t say,” Gibson said. “My host was never religious.”

“Mine was, and from her memories I get the strong impression that he’s just another Catholic priest with a power kick.” Adams gave a frustrated growl. “I wish we could just start over. There are a dozen churches in this area, and we happen to choose the _one_ church with an arrogant _asshole_ priest as our test case.”

Gibson stopped walking, and the subsequent beep of a car door told me we were at the vehicle. From what little I could see, it looked like we were stopped at a gray minivan. Which was quite frankly ridiculous. Evil alien slugs were secretly orchestrating plots to take over the world, and what was their vehicle of choice? The same choice of soccer moms everywhere: the mini-van. Perfect for those long nights of hauling Hork-Bajir and infesting innocent humans.

I swear to God, these little happenstance moments will be what finally tip me over the edge into insanity. Not the alien slug war. No, just the fact that those alien slugs drive _mini-vans_. It was so stupid.

There was a sudden jerking motion, and suddenly the jacket was thrown around. I clung on for dear life, trying to remain invisible. After a few long moments of terror, the movement ceased, and a car door slammed. I peeked out from under the collar and realized that the suit jacket had been tossed in the backseat.

Opening the front door, Gibson said, “Unfortunately, we don’t have that option. Visser Three is barely supportive of this trial run as it is.”

What? If I had been a dog, I swear my ears would have perked up.

“That’s because he doesn’t know anything about this planet,” Adams replied, sounding aggrieved as she opened the passenger side door. “If he considered human history at _all_ —UGH!”

She cut herself short, and there was a sudden stomping noise.

Drily, Gibson said, “Are you letting your host’s disgust of insects get to you again?”

“No,” Adams snapped. “There was a cockroach. It could have been one of the Andalite bandits in morph. Better safe than sorry.”

I felt a sudden urge to _not move at all_.

But Gibson just scoffed. “Please,” he said. “I _wish_ it was one of the bandits. If they showed an interest in this, Visser Three would have to take notice. It wouldn’t be a foolish misuse of resources anymore if the Andalite bandits were attacking.”

The second door slammed as Adams settled in. “He wouldn’t need the extra motivation if he understood how humans operate. We could be diversifying our recruitment efforts instead of just going through The Sharing.”

“Once we get this church under our sway, he’ll have to listen,” Gibson replied as he began to drive. “Just give it time.”

Adams must have been satisfied with the answer, because she simply sighed and fell silent. Soon enough, the only noise came from the low hum of the van and the various sounds from the cars outside.

Guess Yeerks weren’t big on chitchat.

Still, it gave me some time to consider what I had just heard. Visser Three wasn’t supporting this whole endeavor, which suddenly gave us a lot more options to consider when it came to stopping it. Also, Father Martinez clearly had some kind of issue with the Controllers – whether it was a previous argument or just incredibly good instincts, it was only beneficial to our options.

<Marco?> said Jake. His voice sounded faint. <How are things going?>

<Oh, just you wait,> I said. <Things just got a lot more interesting.>

 

\--

  

By the time the Controllers parked, I was running low on morph time and ready to book it out of that van. I made the cut-off just in time, which: thank God. I looked up the lifespan of a housefly after the last time we used these hideous morphs. Getting trapped would essentially mean less than a month of being grossed out by myself before dying a sad, disgusting fly death.

While I sat in a back alley gasping with sweet human relief, Jake made the executive decision that it was too late to plan out our next strike that night. Tired as I was, it was refreshing to morph osprey after spending so long in fly morph. As Tobias proved, at least getting trapped as a bird wouldn’t doom me.

I demorphed behind the dumpsters at my apartment complex, angling myself to stay out of camera range. The sun had already set, but the chilly air from the past week seemed to have passed. I cautiously avoided the broken glass scattered around the entire area as I walked barefoot back to my front door.

The lights were on in the house, so clearly my dad was already home. Praying that he wasn’t paying attention to the time, I opened the door and slowly slipped inside.

“Hey sweetheart,” came a voice I wasn’t expecting. I looked up, startled, and stared mouth agape at Creepy-Lex, who was leaning against the wall in the entryway.

Words escaped me. What the hell—?

“Little skanky for January, don’t you think?” Lex continued, gesturing to my morphing outfit. He snickered, adding, “Was the street corner nice? Bet you had lots of takers.” 

“What the hell are you doing in my house?” I finally asked, ignoring his stupid jokes about prostitution. Apparently my surprise appearance on the street the previous night had left him with the idea to associate me with jokes about turning tricks.

“I was invited,” Lex said, taking a sip of his beer. He glanced over my appearance and furrowed his brow. “Where are your shoes?” His eyes brightened in amusement, adding, “Do you wear stripper heels? Does your dad know?”

Wow. He really was a one-trick pony with humor.

“I’m not a freaking hooker, you dumbass. I was working out,” I snapped, stalking past him. 

“Usually people wear shoes for that.”

“Bite me.”

I turned into the living room, where I could see my Dad sitting on the couch with the chubby Latino guy from before, while the muscular guy was lounging in our old recliner. There were cans of beer littering the coffee table in front of the television, where a college football game was playing. It looked like they had been there for a while, based on the sheer number of cans and containers lying around.

The thing is, maybe that’s normal for some households. Parents having friends over and whatever.

But it wasn’t normal for my dad and me. The house had always been our place, the sanctuary in the storm after my mom disappeared. Or, perhaps more accurately, it was the cold crypt where my dad slowly lost himself. 

It was always just my dad and I, though. Company wasn't really a thing, except on the rare occasions we had our out-of-state relative visiting. And seeing that change without any warning was jarring. I couldn't help but be irritated at the sight of my dad’s drinking buddies lounging and messing up our space.

“Dad,” I said sharply. “Why are there random guys in our house?”

There was a pause as my dad took note of my presence. I could only imagine how I looked, given the messy hair and skin-tight morphing outfit, not to mention the ever-present exhaustion. Predictably, my dad ignored my question and asked, “What are you wearing?”

“Workout clothes,” I lied, before repeating, “Why are there random guys in our house?”

“They’re— friends,” Dad replied, sounding awkward and not convincing at all. “They -- well, ah, Lex needed a place to crash for a little bit, so...”

“So get a hotel.”

“Now, Marco, it’s not that simple—”

“Come on, kid,” the chubby guy said, grinning affably at me. I glared at him. “We’re just hanging out for a while, we’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

“Oh, shut up, I don’t even know your name,” I said coldly.

“Marco!” Dad snapped, standing up a bit unsteadily. “I did not raise you to act like this to guests!” 

I stared at him, disbelieving. 

An arm dropped onto my shoulders, and then Lex said, “Oh, man, did Daddy find out about the street corner?”

“Get _off_ me!” I snarled, pushing his arm off my neck and moving further down the hallway. Lex backed off, mouthing ‘woah’ as he held his hands up in front of him. The other two men were watching the whole exchange with amused smirks. 

“Lex, stay out of this,” Dad said, sounding aggravated. “Marco, go to your room. We can talk about it later.”

I stared at him. “Are you serious right now?"

“Yes. Go to your room.”

A hot rage burned inside my stomach, and for a brief moment, all I could think about was how easy it would be to just take him out. Just turn into a gorilla, knock him out, tear the three stupid assholes apart and be _done_ with it. Why not? It worked for all the other bullshit I had to deal with, why not this? It’s not like I couldn’t take them. I could have them out of this house in two minutes flat, and it would _serve them right_.

Almost as soon as it flared up, my rage was replaced with icy guilt. I came back to myself, staring at my dad and realizing how close I had been to morphing and just dealing with it that way. My dad watched me back, looking tired and pale and overwhelmed, and I just couldn’t deal with how out of control he seemed. Not tonight. Not when I was barely hanging on to control myself.

“Sure,” I muttered, turning toward my room. “Whatever.”

“Put some normal clothes on,” Dad said. I glared back at him for a moment, and he hesitantly added, “You look cold.”

I held his eye contact for a few moments longer, still struggling to contain my anger, and replied, “Fine.”

Then I walked to my room and slammed the door.

Mature? No.

But for that brief moment, it sure as hell felt satisfying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Sexual Harassment -- a grown man harasses Marco and makes comments of a sexual nature.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Please let me know anything you liked or disliked in the comments. :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see end notes for trigger warnings.

 

 

Maybe my anger and stress should have kept me up tossing and turning, but in reality, I was asleep as soon as I collapsed on my bed. I was lucky that I even bothered to change out of my morphing outfit.

I’m pretty sure my Dad must have stopped by sometime in the night, but I was dead asleep. I didn’t wake up until I heard knocking on my door the next morning. My eyes blinked awake slowly and stared at the sun streaming across my bed.

The sight of the light made me bolt up in my bed, panic jolting through my spine. There was no way I would be on time for school, not with the sun this bright and—

“Marco?”

I looked up to see my dad standing there in his pajamas, holding a cup of coffee.

“What time is it?” I asked stupidly, rubbing sleep out of my eyes.

“A little past nine,” Dad said. At my concerned expression, he added, “Don’t worry. I called in sick for you. You’ve seemed tired this week.”

I didn’t say anything. Sure, I could use the sick day, but it wasn’t hard to grasp the real reason my dad wanted me home. He was practically curled around his coffee, shoulders hunched in as he leaned against my doorframe. Any second now and he’d be talking about making waffles or something, just to butter me up as he coaxed forgiveness out of me.

“I have an idea,” Dad said, giving me a half-smile. “Why don’t we go grab some breakfast at Denny’s? We could talk about last night.”

There we go.

Part of me was tempted to just give in and go with him. Despite my deep sleep, I still felt exhausted, and my stomach growled at the mention of breakfast. I hadn’t gotten a chance to eat dinner before crashing the night before. But I had a test in math today, even if I hadn’t bothered to study for it, and Jake had to be wondering why I didn’t show up to homeroom. Not really good enough reasons to miss a free skip day, to be honest. But even though I loved my dad, I didn’t really feel like suffering through his excuses again.

Besides, looking at my dad’s hangdog expression only made me think about why I had been so angry the night before.

“Are those guys still here?” I asked coolly.

Dad hesitated, and then said, “Lex is sleeping on the couch. Rick and Tony left last night some time.”

I stared at him for a long moment, waiting for more information. Then, deliberately breathing slowly to quash the swell of hot anger that was threatening to rise, I asked, “And why, exactly, is our apartment suddenly a hangout for your drinking buddies, Dad?”

“It’s a long story.” By the way he was avoiding my eyes, it was pretty clear Dad was not looking forward to this talk.

“Well, apparently I’m out sick today,” I said. “How about you give me the cliff notes version?”

“Let’s grab breakfast, we can talk there—”

“Let’s talk now, and I’ll decide if I want to grab breakfast.”

“Marco,” Dad said, getting some steel back in his voice. “I don’t like the attitude I’m hearing right now.”

I sighed, swinging my feet out of bed. As I stood up and walked to my closet, I replied, “Well, Dad, I don’t appreciate having new roommates without getting any notice whatsoever.”

“They’re not _roommates_ , Marco.”

“Then what are they?” I asked, grabbing an old pair of jeans and a plaid button-down from the floor of my closet. They smelled passable, which was probably the best I could hope for. “Because Creeper McHalf-Beard is apparently crashed on our couch right now. Last I checked, you _talked_ to me about stuff like this. It’s my house, too!”

“Lex is paying me, okay?” Dad said, extending his arms in a desperate gesture.

“What?”

“He’s paying me,” Dad repeated. “Five hundred bucks for two weeks. He… ran into some trouble with his last place or something. It’s— tricky, and he just needs a place to stay for a bit.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean, he ran into trouble?”

“He didn’t go into details,” Dad said, hands tight around his coffee cup. I could hear what he wasn’t saying: _I didn’t ask_. My skepticism must have shown on my face, because Dad continued, “Look, Lex is just in over his head a little bit. I’m helping him out. He isn’t a bad kid.”

“He’s called me a hooker every time I’ve seen him,” I replied flatly.

Dad winced. “I—I’ll talk to him about that.”

I snorted, turning away and pulling my jeans on over my boxer shorts. I just threw on the button-down over my pajama shirt; no one was going to be looking that closely anyway.

“Don’t you think it might be better to just tell him to find a motel?” I asked, incredulous. “I mean, seriously. There have to be places he can go that are cheaper than two-fifty a week. Why does he need to mooch off you?”

“I – I don’t know, Marco, and honestly, I’m not really in a good position to ask,” Dad said, eyes downcast. “We need the money. The temp agency hasn’t called, stocking is suspended, and we still need to pay bills. An extra thousand a month means that we can get enough to eat, okay?”

I fell silent for a long moment, staring at him. For a split second, I felt like I was watching our conversation from the outside, looking at his slumped shoulders and tired eyes. He was thin like I was, but more gangly, and his oversized sweatshirt only made it more obvious. If I was a kind person, I would probably look at the scene and say, “Look at that man, so overwrought, so concerned for his family. He’s doing the best he can, surely.”

But I wasn’t just some random observer on the outside looking in. And while I may have been naïve and sweet or whatever before my life got turned upside-down from this stupid war, I don’t think I’ve ever really been kind. Jake used to harangue me for being pointlessly mean when we were little kids, so being snappish and judgmental is probably just something I was born with.

And right now, when I looked at my dad, all I could think was, Jesus Christ, how desperate is he right now? Can’t hold down a job, throws money at the bar and the liquor stores to keep him from dealing with his own shit, and he wants me to jump on board? Like it’s my job to absolve him of his problems?

I could do it, of course.

I could go out to breakfast with him, accept his explanations and excuses, and say, “Yeah, Dad, it does make more sense to rent out to your creepy drinking buddy, let’s just do that. Sounds good.” It wouldn’t cost me much to just let him have his delusions that this was going to help things.

Actually, it might be easier, because the only way I could go along with this would be to accept that I just don’t _care_ anymore. If Dad wanted to throw away his life, that’s not my problem. I have bigger shit to worry about, like the fate of the entire _goddamn_ planet. Dad might destroy himself trying to avoid dealing with reality, but it wouldn’t be my responsibility anymore. I could just leave him alone and let him burn out his life.

But I wouldn’t be able to do that.

Not if I wanted to live with myself.

So in the face of Dad’s pleading expression, I set my jaw and said, “You know what, Dad? I don’t care what Lex’s sob story is. He’s creepy and I don’t like him. We can get money some other way.”

“There is no other way—”

“There’s _always_ another way,” I interrupted. “This is just the easier way, and you know it.”

“Look, Marco,” Dad said, shaking his head, “Just come out to breakfast with me and we can talk about it.”

“I’m not hungry,” I lied, grabbing my backpack from the floor and pushing past him. “And I have to get to school before I miss my math test. Why don’t you take Lex? He apparently has the cash, maybe he can pay.”

Stunned silence was my only response. I walked down the hall and glared over at Lex, who was passed out on the couch. I didn’t even feel angry anymore, just cold and distant. Let Dad choose his booze and bar buddies; I didn’t have to go along with it.

I shut the door on any response my dad might have had. But I felt no satisfaction in the gesture this time, just emptiness.

 

\--

 

I made it to school just in time to fail the math test.

Jake saw me in the hallway afterwards and gave me a weird look, but I didn’t want to deal with any questions, so I ignored it. We sat together at lunch and I just stared into space, letting Jake talk with some other jock kids as I sipped on lukewarm water. I hadn’t brought a lunch again, and the last time I had money in the account at school was six months ago.

Luckily, I didn’t starve completely; my backpack still had a couple granola bars leftover from last week, but I had destroyed those as soon as I finished pretending to know how to solve math problems.

I still felt cold inside, unable to stop replaying the conversation from this morning, and skipping lunch prompted a headache. Unsurprisingly, listening to teachers lecture on about quadratic equations or the Cold War didn’t help with either issue. I spent the rest of the school day doodling lazy patterns in my notebook just to pass the time.

Once school was over, we all headed over to Cassie’s to discuss our next steps in the mission. Jake had apparently given up figuring out my mood, because he didn’t bother me the entire walk, choosing instead to chat with Cassie about some group project they were working on.

Besides, once we all convened at Cassie’s and started going over the plan, I was much more alert. Still had a headache, of course, but there’s nothing like an alien war to distract from life’s problems.

“Are you serious?” Rachel said after I revealed what we’d learned on our stakeout. She grinned like I had just announced a half-off sale at the entire mall. “So all we have to do is jack up this one plan and their entire operation is screwed?”

“You’re a lot more excited about this than I thought you’d be,” I said. “You know that if we do this right, you don’t get to hit _anyone_ , right?”

“I like winning,” Rachel said primly, as though my reference to violence was immature. Then, after a pause, she conceded, “Besides, it’s Jordan’s birthday next week and I really can’t afford to miss any more family events.” 

“Ah, so the truth comes out,” Cassie said with a fond smile.

<Regardless,> Tobias interjected from his perch on the rafters. <We didn’t see any known Controllers at the other sites, so our theory that they are solely focusing on the Catholic church first seems solid.>

“Go team,” I said, pumping a fist in the air half-heartedly. “The good Lord has blessed us with a relatively easy mission. Blessed be the lambs.”

“Don’t start,” Rachel said immediately. “Please don’t start. I cannot stand an entire mission of you speaking like you’re preaching from a pulpit.”

“Whether tis nobler in the eyes of man—”

<That’s not even Biblical,> Tobias cut in.

I grinned. “We hold these truths to be self-evident—”

“Okay, we’re done now.” Jake said, clapping a hand over my mouth. I twisted out of his grip, but just laughed rather than continue to harass the group with ill-timed quotes. Jake continued, “I don’t know about you guys, but I have a pile of homework to take care of, so we need to make this quick. As far as we could tell, the Controllers are going to bother Father Martinez during their volunteer event. How do we want to handle that?”

“Actually, I’ve already planned for this. Follow me,” Cassie said. She led the way to the back of the barn, where a makeshift office area had been constructed. As soon as we came into view, a series of tiny cries began to emerge from a wire cage sitting next to the desk.

“Wait, seriously?” Rachel said, smiling. “We’re going with kittens?”

“They seemed very. Ery. Small,” Ax said, only bothering to stumble on one word as he tilted his head at the cage.

“But appropriately adorable,” Jake said, squatting down to take a look.

<Yeah,> Tobias added dryly. <They’re so cute I could just eat them up.>

There was a beat as everyone took in his deadpan tone. Rachel and I exchanged glances and started snickering, to which Cassie responded with an exasperated, “Oh, that’s terrible. You guys are horrible people for laughing at that.”

“This is true,” I said, looking over at Rachel. She nodded in agreement.

<Don’t worry, Cassie,> Tobias said, fluttering over to land on a nearby cage. <Those kittens are far too stringy to eat.>

“Though I bet if you sautéed them with some barbecue sauce, you could never tell,” I said, smirking at Cassie’s put-upon expression.

“Maybe some kind of stir-fry?” Rachel offered, nodding with fake sincerity. “Or kitty stew?”

<That would probably help, I agree.>

“Oh, come on, guys,” exclaimed Cassie, shaking her head.

“No one’s eating the kittens,” Jake said, though he had to duck his head to hide a grin.

“I hope not,” Cassie replied. “These two are our ticket into the event. My dad has a standing arrangement with the animal shelter any time we find stray cats and dogs. We foster them here and give them any medical treatment they need, but the shelter keeps the records and helps adopt the kittens out. I asked my dad, and he arranged for these two guys to be in the event on Saturday.”

“So what are we thinking, then?” Rachel asked. “Two of us morph kittens, with you and your Dad there to act as buffers?”

“Just me,” Cassie said. “I offered to help him out. I could bring someone along to assist me, though – it would be a solid cover.”

“It would prob-probably be wise if I were not. Aht. In the event,” Ax suggested. “If I needed to demorph, it would be more difficult to hide.”

<Yeah, same goes for me. Better to play it safe if we can,> Tobias said, cocking his head at the little furballs.

There was a black one and a gray one, each one small enough to easily fit into my hand. The gray one was hiding in a little climbing tower in its cage, watching everyone warily. In contrast, the black kitten stood on top of the tower, staring aggressively at Tobias. Every so often it would hiss quietly, ears folded back defensively.

In light of this observation, Tobias added, <Besides, I doubt either one would let me get close enough to acquire anyway.>

“We could have you both as birds to keep an eye outside, like last time,” Jake said. “Either Rachel or I could accompany Cassie, since we’re already friends.”

“Actually, if Rachel accompanies me as a human, I thought you could morph Homer,” Cassie said, referring to Jake’s dog. “People often bring their pets to these things.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to morph Homer?” Rachel asked. “It’s Jake’s dog, after all.”

“Well, I hadn’t quite—”

“Wait,” I interrupted, “So I’m one of the kittens?”

“We thought you’d prefer to stay tiny and helpless,” Rachel said without missing a beat, her smile saccharine.

“And cute,” I debated. “Let’s be real here, that’s definitely the reason you want me to go kitten. Rachel wants to say I’m cute without having to be upfront about it.”

“Ah, yes, tiny, helpless, and cute,” Rachel mocked. “Exactly what women want.”

“Uh, yeah. Have you ever known a girl who didn’t like kittens? They’re a universal chick-magnet. I’m in.”

“Okay,” Jake said, rolling his eyes at my antics. “Well in that case, I will stay human with Cassie and Rachel can morph kitten with Marco.”

“What?” Rachel asked. “Why me?”

“You’re the only one who has experience with housecats other than Tobias,” Jake replied smoothly. Then he smirked. “Besides, I’m not nearly tiny, cute, or helpless enough to pull it off. Gotta leave this to the professionals.”

“Oh, give me a break,” Rachel said as Jake and I started snickering. Even Cassie was grinning at Rachel’s annoyance. “Fine, but only to keep Marco from making a complete idiot of himself.”

“I look forward to us being super adorable together,” I said, batting my eyes at her. “It’s the perfect start to our relationship.”

“Gross,” replied Rachel, but she laughed anyway.

Unlike some of the other animals we’ve dealt with over the years, the kittens were ridiculous easy to acquire. Once Tobias had flown a safe distance away, Rachel and I were able to reach in and take them out of the cage without any issue. Rachel insisted on absorbing the black kitten, claiming that he had the most moxie, so I was left with the tiny gray kitten in the corner.

As soon as I picked it up, the kitten gave a nearly soundless meow and tucked its face into my neck, clearly intimidated by all the people around. Rachel’s cat, in contrast, was gnawing playfully at her hand.

A flash went off on my right side, and I looked up, startled, to see Cassie holding a camera.

“Hey, no pictures!” I protested. Pictures of me cuddling a kitten weren’t the type of thing I liked to have lying around. For all I joked with Rachel, it didn’t exactly help detract from the burden of my tiny and cute image.

Cassie grinned. “We need to have some good memories from this whole experience. A picture of you and Rachel holding kittens definitely qualifies.”

“If we get famous after this, I’m going to destroy every copy of that image,” I threatened, even as I kept petting the gray kitten’s fur to help it calm down.

Rachel laughed. “I want double copies so I can make sure that never happens.”

“Are kittens an embarrassing animal on Earth?” Ax asked with a puzzled expression.

<Only if you’re Marco,> Tobias answered, sounding entirely too smug.

I flipped him a single-digit salute even as I started acquiring the kitten. It went predictably still in my arms for a few moments. As soon as the trance finished, the kitten seemed to relax and started purring loudly in my arms. It even felt like my headache dimmed a bit just listening to it.

The camera flashed again.

“Oh, come on!”

After a few more rounds of unasked-for photography, everyone agreed to meet up on Saturday morning to begin Operation: Kitten Rescue. The name was created by Jake and was only mildly amusing the first time he said it, no matter how annoyed he looked when we didn’t laugh. Poor Jake. He tries to be funny. He fails, but he tries.

By the time we had arranged all the details, it was nearing five o’clock, so everyone began to part ways.

“Hey Marco,” Jake said, jogging to catch up with me. He had stayed behind to chat with Cassie a bit. “Let me walk with you.”

Now, Jake and I live in the same direction away from Cassie’s, but not really all that close. It would’ve made more sense for him to walk with Rachel, who had gone ahead in a different direction. So already his comment felt weird.

Besides, this was the second time in less than a week that he had pulled the “interrogate Marco while we walk” bit, so I wasn’t buying it. I could feel my headache coming back to life in anticipation.

“What’s it this time, big Jake?” I asked, not bothering to slow down for him. “Wanna bug me about my school activities again?”

“Sure,” he replied. “Let’s talk about that.”

“I’m tired lately,” I said, not bothering to dissemble. “I’ve been tired before, I’ll get over it. Like Cassie said, we’ve all had rough days, it’s not like it’s that out of the ordinary.”

“Usually our rough patches have to do with the war,” Jake countered. He didn’t look at me as we walked, striding forward with his hands in the pockets of his jacket like he was enjoying the brisk air. His jaw was set in a way it always got when he was bothered by something. “This is literally one of the easiest missions we’ve ever dealt with.”

I groaned. “Don’t say that out loud, man. That’s just asking for fate to fuck us.”

“Please. As if fate isn’t actively fucking us anyway,” Jake muttered.

I barked out a laugh, grinning over at him. “I love it when you swear. It’s so aggressively bitter.”

“Well, we have good reason for that too,” Jake said, shooting me a grin. Then his smile faded, a familiar serious expression taking its place. “Look, Marco, we’re worried about you.”

“We?” I repeated, glaring at him. “What, are you guys holding meetings about my problems, now?”

“More like people keep asking me if you’re sick,” Jake said frankly. “Or if you need help, or if you’re eating enough, or any number of random things. I’m not even talking about the other Animorphs here; I’m talking about our classmates. Our teachers. Albers. Mikkelson. _Chapman_.”

His emphasis on the last name wasn’t lost on me. Chapman was a high-ranking Controller, and none of us liked being on his radar. Unfortunately, he was also our Vice Principal, so there wasn’t much we could do to avoid him.

Still, that wasn’t the most irksome issue.

“Wait, they’re asking _you_?”

“They know we’re friends.” Jake shrugged. “And most of the time you talk you just act like a sarcastic little shit. A lot of people don’t know how to handle that.”

I groaned, aggravated. “So what did you tell them?”

“Standard stuff,” he replied. “Busy with schoolwork, helping out at home, late night gaming, all that crap.”

“Well, that’s good at least.”

“Those excuses aren’t going to last,” Jake said.

“We all have to make them,” I pointed out. I kicked a few pebbles down the road as we walked, not wanting to make eye contact.

“True,” Jake acknowledged. “But we don’t usually have to make them with each other. The rest of us don’t buy any of those excuses, either, and I’m getting sick of pretending everything is okay when they ask.”

Getting annoyed, I turned to face him and snapped, “So stop pretending then! If they want to ask about my life, they can come ask me. I’m just going to say the same thing I told you.”

<Okay,> Tobias’ voice sounded in my head. <I can do that.>

I whirled around and stared up at the sky, where a familiar red-tailed hawk was dipping lower in the sky. I hadn’t noticed him following us. Tobias landed on a branch of a nearby tree and stared down at us with his piercing eyes.

“Oh _great_ ,” I muttered as my shoulders tensed up defensively. “Bird-Boy wants to know more about how to be a real boy?”

<See, this is why no one likes to ask you about your problems, Marco,> Tobias responded coolly. <You’re kind of an asshole.>

“Only kind of? I’ll have to try harder; I was going for complete asshole.”

Jake sighed, looking up at the sky in a distinct “why me?” manner.

“Oh, don’t wimp out now, Jake,” I said to him. “You’re the one who brought this up.”

<He brought it up because we asked him to,> Tobias said. <You think no one notices that you’re tired all the time? Or how distracted you’ve been? Or maybe how you don’t eat anything at lunch anymore?>

I made a face at him. “Exactly how much free time do you have?”

“It’s not hard to notice that you don’t eat when we sit together at lunch every day,” Jake said. “This isn’t just Tobias and I who’ve noticed this stuff, Marco. Even Rachel was asking about it, and she goes out of her way to _not_ pay attention to you.”

“She just doesn’t want to admit the genuine attraction between us,” I replied, trying to fall back on my usual humor. It felt weak.

Jake ignored my quip, saying, “Look, man, we’ve talked about this already and I get it. You have your dad to worry about, and he’s not getting better. But something has to change. You’re running yourself ragged trying to take care of him and it’s only getting worse.”

“I’m handling it—” I began, but Tobias cut me off.

<No, you’re not. You’re running on the edge. All it’ll take is one terrible battle and you’re going to snap,> he predicted. <And as someone who depends on you to help keep me alive, I have a vested interest in keeping you on this side of sanity.>

I shot him a brittle smile, biting out, “Well, as long as we’re clear about why _you_ give a fuck.”

<Oh, shut up,> Tobias said. He sounded annoyed, which gave me a perverse sense of pleasure in dragging someone else down to share my mood. <We may not be friends, Marco, but we are a team. I care about you. And you might scoff and make stupid jokes, but you care too. You’ve proven that over this past year.>

“Oh, you mean back when you tried to commit birdie-suicide?” I asked. It was like the words just flowed out, hot and caustic. “Yeah, you were really big on sharing back then too, weren’t you?”

“Jesus, Marco, _stop it_ ,” Jake snapped. He grabbed my arm and got in my face, fully angry now. “We’re trying to help. Fighting everyone who tries to help you isn’t going to improve anything.”

“Yeah?” I asked, yanking my arm out of his grasp. I shifted my backpack more firmly on my back, stepping away from him. “Well, neither is talking about it. We already went _over_ this, man. There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s either take care of my dad or let him screw his life over. And I can’t do that. I’ve already lost one parent, I’m not losing both of them.”

Tense silence descended after I finished my rant, leaving me breathing hard and glaring at them both. We were halfway through the park, but it was nearing dinnertime on a weekday, so no one was around to observe our showdown. Jake just stared at me, looking too irritated to be sympathetic. Thank God, because if he had given me a pitying look right then I probably would have punched him.

At least Tobias always looked like he was two seconds away from clawing my eyes out. I doubt his bird face was even capable of looking concerned.

Finally, when it became clear neither of them had anything else to say, I lowered my voice and said, “Look… I get it, I do. I need to figure out a better balance. I don’t want to be the one who fucks up a mission because I didn’t get enough sleep, so I’ll work on it.”

“You’ve been working on it for months,” Jake said, annoyance slowly bleeding out of his face. “It’s not you who needs to fix this.”

“Yeah, well, I’m the only one I can control,” I replied. It sounded bitter to my ears. “It’s the best I can do.”

Tobias stayed quiet. I couldn’t tell if he was still pissed about what I said, or if he just didn’t have any more to add. Probably both. Tobias and I had never been close in the first place. Our role as comrades-in-arms didn’t really help the matter, even as it made us understand each other better. It was like having a brother I never quite got along with; he was family and I loved him, as I loved all of them in a strange, war-torn way, but I didn’t quite know how to translate that into friendship.

“I need to get home,” I said, feeling my angry energy draining away. “I – I dunno – I appreciate the concern, okay? I’ll work on it.”

Jake tightened his jaw, clearly not liking my answer. He glanced up at Tobias for a long moment. From the way his eyes went distant, I could tell Tobias was talking to him privately. Thought-speak is weird, but use it often enough and it becomes pretty easy to recognize the way people looked when they thought-whispered.

It was aggravating, but I felt like my anger reservoirs had been spent for the day. It didn’t matter. None of it did, really. Even if I got on board with Jake’s concern, it wouldn’t amount to anything. My dad would still drink too much, he still wouldn’t have a job, and we’d still have money problems. Worse, Creepy-Lex would still be crashing on our couch, because, knowing my dad, half of that money was already earmarked for his bar tab.

After he finished listening to whatever Tobias said, Jake sighed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Fine,” he said, sounding anything but. “We’ll back off. But I need to know you’re taking care of yourself. I’ll bring you lunch, I don’t care.”

“Sure thing, sir,” I said, shooting him a mock salute just to rub the salt in. Jake winced, irritation blooming anew on his face as I reminded him yet again of his leadership role. “Bring me some of Homer’s dog biscuits, I can do tricks for them.”

“You’re such a dick sometimes, I swear to God, Marco,” Jake muttered, rolling his eyes. He paused, clearly debating on his next sentence, and then said, “Do you still want to walk together?”

I glanced ahead, noting the upcoming turn-off. Jake could walk it with me or cut through the park to angle toward his house. Normally we would walk together part of the way, just goofing off, but the air still felt uneasy. Tobias waited on his branch, staring across the park at some distant sight. I’m sure he wanted to talk to Jake in a conversation where Jake could talk back. Maybe they could commiserate on how much of a jerk I was being.

Besides, after that whole ordeal, I really didn’t feel like trying for a normal conversation. It seemed like every time I tried today, I just wound up getting pissed off. Better just to call it quits and head home to deal with the consequences from this morning.

“Nah,” I said, already turning away. “I think I’m feeling the silence right now.”

I could feel Jake and Tobias watching me as I walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: crude references to canon attempted suicide; effects of child neglect; swearing.
> 
> Also, I'm going to be posting these chapters a little more quickly now. I just found out my work is sending me off-site at some point this month, and I don't know how reliable internet access is going to be. :/ I'd prefer to finish posting than leave an incomplete story, so my goal is to get it all out before I go.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the end notes for trigger warnings. This chapter starts some of the stronger ones.

The next couple of days passed with uncomfortable tension.

My dad was still talking to me, albeit in the awkward, clipped way he used when he was mad but didn’t want to get into it. Back when my mom was still with us, before the Yeerks got ahold of her, she used to rage about how passive-aggressive my dad got when they fought. I remember sitting at the top of the stairs during one of their fights, just listening to her explode out with a rant while he stayed quiet, until he made some random comment that just irked her anew. At the time, I thought his reactions were because he was such a calm person, but now I think he just didn’t like confrontation. He certainly avoided it with me as much as he could.

Of course, during the last two years before my mom’s apparent death, they stopped fighting altogether. The Yeerk must not have had time to waste with pointless domestic fights.

In an attempt to prevent conflict, on Thursday and Friday night Dad stayed late at the bar again. It sort of worked. I didn’t have to interact with Dad’s drunk friends, except to walk by Lex passed out on our couch in the morning before I went to school. I definitely preferred not having to deal with them.

But at the same time, I didn’t get to interact with Dad, either.

I couldn’t help feeling burned by that. Ever since my mom left the picture, it had just been my dad and me, standing against all comers. Now Dad was leaning on his booze and bar buddies and literally leaving me standing alone.

It helped to stay mad at him. I figured it wouldn’t hurt as much if I just concentrated on how irritated I was.

Didn’t really work, but I’m a master of self-delusion. It’s an art form.

Things with the other Animorphs weren’t as bad, though they were still kind of awkward. True to form, Jake brought me lunch on Friday. He also brought one of Homer’s dog biscuits and called me “Spot”, because Jake is a petty asshole.

I didn’t care. I’d earned it, after all. I even ate some of the biscuit before the flavor made me gag. It made Jake laugh, which helped the tension lift a little.

Still, our earlier fight made any conversation between us rather stilted. Jake was clearly watching me, even as he tried to pretend he wasn’t. I never caught Cassie or Rachel doing the same, but we had only had one day of school so far. I knew how things operated when one of us had an issue; all hands on deck tended to be our modus operandi. Which was a phrase I learned in English class on Friday specifically to prove that I stayed awake, because faking my way through life was _my_ modus operandi.

In any case, I woke up Saturday morning thinking mostly of our upcoming mission. It was easier than thinking about anything concerning my dad. I mean, seriously, Rachel and I were going to morph kittens. I couldn’t imagine it was going to be difficult, especially compared to some of the ridiculous animals we’d morphed before.

In fact, I was happily distracting myself with thoughts of said mission while I made breakfast. As eggs fried and bread toasted, I didn’t notice anything awry until an arm dropped on my shoulders.

“Hey,” Lex said, leaning in way too close on my shoulder. “Gonna make some for me?”

I jerked back, dropping the spatula on the counter. “What the—!”

“Woah, calm down,” laughed Lex. He dropped his arm as I pulled away. “Man, you’re kind of a spaz, aren’t you?”

I glared at him, but the lingering shock of being touched dampened my voice. I gaped at him, clumsily saying, “I – dude, don’t just… grab me, what the hell.”

Lex smiled, leaning back against the counter and appearing to enjoy my awkward reaction. “Huh. I would have thought you’d be used to random guys all over you.” He grinned like he had just made a hilarious joke.

That stupid comment, if nothing else, made me regain my stature. I snatched up the spatula and angrily continued to scramble the eggs, not bothering to respond. I focused on leveling my breathing, so he couldn’t tell how much he had startled me. It was frustrating how off-guard I was, but I had thought for sure that Lex was still passed out on the couch. I knew from the snores that my dad was definitely still down.

“Aw, come on, I was kidding,” Lex said. “Your dad said you didn’t like the jokes.”

“And yet you’re still making them,” I snapped, glowering at my eggs like they were at fault. At this point, they were getting kind of overcooked, but Lex was standing in front of the dish cabinet and I really didn’t want to interact with him more than necessary.

“Well, I can’t help that you look like a girl.”

Ugh. He still seemed to be joking, even though his tone sent an odd chill down my back. Not wanting to encourage him, I just replied, “Yeah, I get it. I have long hair. Get over it.”

“Aw, you don’t like hearing that you’re pretty?”

I stared at him blankly for a long moment, unsure of how to respond. In the end, I just rolled my eyes and turned back to the frying pan. Ignoring dogs made them leave you alone; maybe it would work with dumbass deadbeats too.

Lex continued to stare at me for a beat, just long enough to make the silence uncomfortable. Then, as though he hadn’t said anything weird, he clapped his hands and said, “Anyway, I’m hungry. What do you have?”

I narrowed my eyes. “This isn’t a restaurant. If you want food, go buy it yourself.”

“Oh, come on. I’m paying to stay here; you’re saying that doesn’t come with free meals?” The whiney edge to his words made my shoulders tense in irritation.

“Are you kidding me right now?” I said. “Go to a hotel if you want continental breakfast. I’m actually being serious, it’d probably be cheaper.”

“Nah, no can do,” Lex said, sounding way too chill for someone spending $500 for two weeks on a couch. He finally pushed away from the counter, freeing up the space for me to get a plate as he moved over by the dinner table.

I busied myself with dishing up my scrambled eggs and toast, ignoring whatever Lex was messing with. I had planned on eating my breakfast up in my room anyway, so it’s not like it mattered.

At least, that’s what I thought until I turned to leave the kitchen and saw what Lex was doing.

“Is that…?” I asked incredulously. Lex was leafing through an old duffle bag and held a handful of small white tabs. There were some more of the small packets in the bag, along with a Ziploc bag half-full of some kind of white powder. I stared, rapidly connecting the sight before me with scenes I had only seen in movie. “Are those drugs?”

“Yeah, it’s heroin,” Lex said, nodding. If I had thought he seemed overly cavalier before, it was nothing compared to now. There had to be hundreds of dollars in drugs in that bag, and he was just sorting through it like he was arranging papers or something.

“Are you _insane_?” I snapped. “You’re just gonna sit there and sort heroin on our kitchen table?”

“Well, yeah,” Lex said. He looked up at me, grinning with a strange smugness to his expression. “Why, do you want some?”

“Uh, no, that’s not why I’m freaking out here,” I said, feeling increasingly disconcerted by how calm Lex seemed. “Does my dad know you have all this? That you’re a drug dealer?”

Lex shrugged. “It’s not like I’m dealing out of your house or anything, don’t worry. I just needed a new place to crash.”

“Yeah, you didn’t answer my question, asshole.”

“He knows I’m a dealer,” Lex answered. “I don’t really use the stuff myself. Besides, like I said, I promised not to deal out of your house. I just need a place to sleep, and the hotels around here all know me.”

“And they don’t want you there?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Shocking.”

“Well, that’s just rude,” said Lex, with the same amused tone to his voice.

“And wait – you mean my dad knows you deal heroin? And he—?” I couldn’t even bring myself to finish the sentence. My dad had never been Mr. Anti-Drugs or anything, but he’d always been clear that there wasn’t a place for them in our house. Hell, he’d quit smoking just to set a better example for me, which were the exact words that he specifically used when I was eight.

And now he was completely chill about just inviting a drug dealer into our house?

I just stared at the bag on the table, not wanting to register this new information.

I had always thought that my dad being infested would be the worst thing. And – well, okay, it still would be. That wasn’t really up for debate.

But in a twisted way, this almost seemed just as bad.

See, at least if my dad had been taken by the Yeerks, I could blame them. Suddenly my dad would be a Controller, doing and saying things that he had no control over. I’d know how to fight it. Maybe I couldn’t do anything about it, but I’d still know what needed to be done. I had already faced that dark reality with my mom.

This was different.

My dad was still free, but he was gone at the same time. Little by little, the dad I knew had been slipping away. And unlike my mom, Dad was letting it happen. He let the darkness drag him down, and now he was living life half in a bottle and taking rent money from a dealer who sorted his heroin on our kitchen table. It was a testament to how far gone he was that I never even questioned if Lex was telling the truth. Of course Dad knew about it.

He just didn’t care anymore.

I stood there in cold realization of this fact, staring blankly at the table.

My dad didn’t care. Not about his job, his health, his safety.

And despite his claims otherwise, it was pretty likely that he didn’t care about me all that much anymore either. Not enough for it to count.

“Hey, are you okay?” Lex asked, making a face.

“Yeah,” I replied reflexively. “I’m good.”

Lex stared blankly, rubbing at his shitty half-goatee with one hand. “Well, y’know, if you wanted like, weed, or something, I could get some from Rick. Get you real relaxed, y’know what I mean? You’ll definitely be good.”

I barely registered his comments. “Here,” I said, setting the plate down on the table. “You can have this.” I felt like my stomach had turned to a block of ice.

“Aw, yeah, sweet!”

“I have to go,” I muttered, turning away. It was like I was moving underwater, slow and drifting. I didn’t even know where I wanted to go. All I could think was, _I’ve gotta get out of here._

In a blink, I was out the door.

Minutes later, I was covered in feathers and flying away.

 

\--

 

I flew around for a few hours, demorphing and remorphing at some point halfway through. I barely paid attention to where I was, just relying on the bird’s instincts and the warm thermals to keep me afloat. It didn’t matter. I just wanted space to think without having to make any decisions about anything. Birds were good with space. They didn’t care about dumb family drama. Birds just wanted to float along and hunt for lunch.

Eventually, I had to stop. Fun fact: morphing takes energy. I probably should have eaten those eggs, despite how sour my stomach had gone. It would have given me some extra morph time for sure. I briefly considered snatching a rat, but in the end I just gave up. No need to give myself _more_ nightmare fodder.

I found myself standing in my morphing outfit in the nearly deserted cemetery. There was a family hanging out near the entrance, but that was far enough away from me.

The grass in front of my mother’s grave was still slightly damp from the morning dew. I sat down in front of it anyway. My dad and I hadn’t visited in a while, but the headstone had been dusted off and the weeds uprooted. At least the cemetery staff was paying attention.

I don’t know why I found comfort in this place. It made no sense, really. My mother wasn’t dead. Or maybe she was now, I had no idea, but she didn’t die three years ago. Our memory of her and her funeral was a sham constructed by the Yeerks. I don’t know how many guests at her funeral were Controllers, but given how high up she had been in the Yeerk chain of command, it made sense that a lot of them probably were. They probably attended just to make sure her disappearance went as planned.

And yet… it was calm at the cemetery. Peaceful.

I sat at the foot of my mom’s grave and wrapped my arms around my knees, resting my head on top. It wasn’t as easy to let my mind wander as it had been in my osprey morph, but it was doable. I focused on my breathing and left myself drift, staring blankly at the fine stone lettering.

It was too easy to imagine how things could be different.

If my dad had never lost his job. If he hadn’t started drinking. If we’d never lost our house. If my mother had never left. If the Yeerks had never come.

There were too many options. Too many places where my life had been twisted around, where a different choice would have resulted in a wildly different reality.

And those were just the ones I had no control over.

I didn’t even want to get into the rest of it.

I don’t really know how long I stayed out at the graveyard. Flying around had blown through a few hours in the morning, but it wasn’t like I was really keeping track.

The sound of bare feet on grass behind me brought me out of my contemplation, and I looked up to see Jake standing there in his morphing uniform.

“Hey, man,” he said, expression carefully blank.

I looked away, not wanting to start another fight. The anger didn’t bloom in me the way it had before, but who knew if Jake felt the same?

Without saying a word, Jake sat down beside me. I’m sure we made a ridiculous picture; two barefoot teenage boys in bike shorts and long-sleeved Lycra tops, as though we were aspiring bikers with no equipment.

We sat in silence for a long moment. Finally, I said, “How’d you find me?”

“It’s not that hard to guess where you’ll go when you’re missing, actually. You’re pretty predictable.”

“I’ll remember you said that the next time I beat you in Mortal Kombat.”

“Not the same,” Jake protested, scoffing. Then, after a brief pause, he said, “I went to your house first.”

I glanced over at him.

“Figured we could grab breakfast,” he explained. “Or, well, I guess lunch now. We probably still have some time before we have to meet at Cassie’s.”

“Oh.” I had completely forgotten about the mission. I glanced away again, embarrassed. “Right. That.”

“We have time,” Jake repeated, shrugging. “But I was surprised, because I went to your house and some weird dude with terrible facial hair answered the door.”

“Oh,” I said again, with growing dread.

“He didn’t know where you’d gone, but he did ask if I was one of your clients. I think he was joking? And then he offered to sell me some drugs, which was fun.”

“Oh, God,” I moaned, tucking my face into my arms.

“Marco? Why is the world’s least secretive drug dealer crashing at your house?” Jake asked. “Is your dad doing drugs now?”

“ _No_ ,” I said emphatically. Then I sighed. “At least, I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“That’s not really an option here, buddy,” Jake replied. His voice was slowly getting a stern edge to it. “Because even if this dude was a drug dealer with a heart of gold or whatever, we still have the Yeerks to consider.”

“He’s not a Controller,” I said, shaking my head. “Or if he is, he’s the least effective Controller I’ve ever seen. He’s one of my dad’s drinking buddies from the bar, and my dad’s renting him our couch because apparently his drug dealing got him kicked out of where ever he was before.”

Jake furrowed his brow. “What, and your dad is suddenly the caretaker for the poor and downtrodden?”

“More like he’s paying five hundred bucks every two weeks and Dad’s desperate.”

“That’s… not good,” Jake said, clearly unsure of how to assess this new development.

I sighed, brushing at some loose grass caught on my shorts. “It’s crappy, yeah, but it doesn’t really affect us. Mission-wise, at least. If anything, my dad is now paying less attention to me, because we got into a fight about it and he’s avoiding me now.”

“Uh-huh,” murmured Jake. I could feel his gaze sharpen on my back. “And how are you dealing with that?”

“Me?” I asked. I glanced over at Jake with a look of mock surprise. “Oh, I’m great. This is nothing. Definitely not bitter or pissed off at all.”

“Right, you seem good.”

“Clearly.”

The conversation died for a moment, leaving only the faint sound of chirping birds as a backdrop. I settled my chin on my arms again, staring at my mother’s headstone with renewed focus. It was easier than looking at Jake as he analyzed me.

I knew what he was thinking. Is Marco ready? Is he focused? Can he be relied upon? Jake would hate himself for thinking about it but he’d do so all the same, because as much as Jake resisted it, he was our leader. He had to think of it like that. He had to see us like chess pieces.

I don’t blame him for that. Hell, I think it’s admirable that he keeps resisting. I stopped thinking about the Animorphs like human beings a long time ago. As far as I was concerned, we were all just chess pieces.

That’s probably why I wasn’t the leader.

“So,” Jake said, cutting through the quiet. “We have to meet at Cassie’s in two hours, but you’re not essential to this mission. We could just grab lunch and leave it at that. Do you want to take a break? I could take your place no problem. Same with Ax or Tobias.”

“Tobias might be a little tricky,” I countered, just to be contrary.

“Fine, just me or Ax then,” Jake said, rolling his eyes. “The point stays the same. Are you in or out today?”

I didn’t reply, staring at the headstone.

What was I supposed to say? The options spun around in my head, taunting me. I could jump ship, just for today; take a break and sit here all day mourning my old life. But it wouldn’t solve the problem. It wouldn’t help. Sitting here and pitying myself wouldn’t actually fix anything.

No matter how much I wish it could be that easy.

“I’m in,” I said, almost without intention. As the words left my mouth, I could feel my resolve hardening. I looked over at Jake, smirking slightly as I mocked, “Can’t let Rachel have all the fun. Let’s do this.”

Jake eyed me back with amusement. “Sure thing, Xena.”

 

\--

 

Here’s the thing about cats: pound for pound, they are one of the most deadly predators on Earth. They are flexible to their environment and can hunt thousands of different species, from bugs to rodents to birds. A cat’s killer instincts are so strong, they don’t even need to be hungry to start hunting; they hunt as a fun pastime and play around with their prey. As far as humans go, they might not be as intimidating as wolves or bears or sharks, but on their level, cats are efficient killing machines.

Here’s the thing about kittens: none of the above applies.

<Is that a bug?> I asked, focusing toward the back corner of the cage. <It looks like a bug. I’m gonna get it!>

<Where?> Rachel asked. <Let me get it, I’m faster.>

<No, it’s mine!>

My tail stood straight up and my ears tipped forward, focusing on the corner. There was a fly resting on the side of our food dish. I leaned onto my front paws, prepping my stance and then leapt—!

I collided with Rachel halfway through her own jump, causing us both to haphazardly crash into the water dish. My entire left side was suddenly soaked.

The fly flew off to safer pastures.

<Oh _man_ , I almost had it!> Rachel moaned. <What the hell, Marco!>

<It was my bug first!>

We were tangled up in the corner, wrestling and biting each other as we fought for dominance. In the end, Rachel won, perching her paws on my head. I struggled for a bit, but soon after she pinned me Rachel started licking the water off my ears, and I stopped caring. Without even thinking about it, I began to purr in relaxation.

<Um,> Tobias said from overhead. <Are you guys entirely in control of your morphs right now?>

<Of course we are,> Rachel said, though she didn’t stop grooming. <I just… have to clean his fur. It’s ugly. And wet.>

“Uh-huh,” Jake intervened, clearly not convinced. “And Marco?”

<Shhh, it’s grooming time,> I murmured in response, not entirely awake anymore. The purring felt like a tiny engine in my throat.

“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about them acting strange,” Cassie said, sounding amused. The cage rattled slightly as she stopped walking forward, forcing Rachel to readjust herself on my shoulders. She started cleaning my neck instead, and I nestled my face deeper into my paws, eyes closing.

“Who knew kitten instincts would be so strong?” Jake mused.

Cassie’s parents had dropped us off at the corner of the block before taking off for some animal activist convention across town. They were supposed to pick us back up in a few hours. Just in case, Cassie had hidden away the cage with the real kittens in the back of the barn. It wouldn’t help if Cassie’s dad suddenly thought there were four kittens for adoption.

“It makes sense that baby animals would have more powerful instincts,” Cassie said, sounding thoughtful. “The younger an animal is, the more it has to make up for a lack of experience. It’s likely that certain instincts are overpowering in younger animals.”

<I told you, I’m in control,> Rachel protested, sounding spacy.

“Rachel, you’re holding Marco down and licking him,” Jake said flatly.

<He… needs a bath. His fur is gross.>

<Rude,> I interjected, not bothering to open my eyes.

“Sorry to break up the fun, but we have to head in now,” Cassie said. The cage jolted as she maneuvered through the doorway, forcing Rachel and I to jump apart as adrenaline shot through our systems. The rush of new sights and sounds outside the cage alarmed me and made my kitten brain tense in anticipation. I crouched by the water dish and observed the passing view with trepidation, tail wrapped around my body.

“All right, game plan,” Jake said, as he set the cage down on one of the tables. We were settled near the office hallway, which gave us an optimal view of the entire event. “You guys know the plan. Cassie and I will keep our eye out, and as soon as we can, we’re going to move you guys to a better location to listen in. If we can’t do that, plan B is for me to morph fly and follow them around.”

<What about when people start noticing the crazy person who’s talking to kittens?> I asked. <What’s the game plan then?>

“We’re comforting you,” Cassie said, kneeling next to the cage and speaking with a low, soothing voice. “It’s perfectly common to see people talking to their pets in a new environment.

<Very convincing,> Rachel said drily.

<What happens if someone wants to adopt me?> I asked. <I don’t know if you realize this, but I am painfully cute right now. You’re going to be fighting people off with a stick.>

“Not really the goal here,” Jake replied.

<Being as cute as possible is always the goal, Jake.>

<Interesting,> Rachel mused. <What’s it like to be such a constant failure?>

<I liked you better when we were cuddling,> I shot back. The churning anxiety in the kitten brain made it easy for me to look over at her and hiss quietly.

<It was _instinctive_! > Rachel protested.

“Play nice,” Cassie said, sounding amused.

<What about Tobias and Ax?> Rachel asked. <Are you guys in position?>

<Yep,> Tobias said, his voice sounding faint. <No sign of the Yeerks yet.>

“All right,” Jake said. “Cassie, go get us registered. It looks like things are just getting started.”

I sat up and began grooming the rest of my matted fur, muttering, <And now we wait.>

The entire adoption event went by pretty smoothly at first. A lot of families came up and said fond things about how precious and sweet we looked. Jake and Cassie limited how many people were allowed to hold us by making up some illness we were supposedly recovering from. It was unfortunate, too, because there were a couple of pretty girls that clearly had the good taste to like me best, but Jake wouldn’t let them hold me. Because he’s a jerk.

Rachel told me I was being stupid when I gloated about being deemed cutest, but I knew she was jealous.

After about thirty minutes, Jake leaned down as though he was checking on us and whispered, “Okay, Father Martinez is heading this way. Show time.”

Rachel and I promptly moved to the back of the cage, finding as much cover as we could. I curled into her side but stayed perched on my toes, ears pushed back.

“Good afternoon!” Father Martinez greeted, sounding bright and energized from the activity in the room. “You’re Cassie, right? Your father spoke with me yesterday. I am so glad you were able to find our church all right.”

“Oh, it was easy,” Cassie replied. “Thank you for hosting this event. This is my friend Jake, he’s here to help out.”

“That’s wonderful,” Father Martinez said. “How are you liking it so far? Have these guys found a home yet?”

He crouched down and stared into the cage. Rachel and I stayed frozen in place, trying to look as uncomfortable as possible. As Father Martinez frowned, brow furrowing, Rachel let out a tiny hiss and the fur on her neck began to stand up.

<Ooh, nice touch,> I said.

<Thanks.>

“Actually,” Jake said, right on cue. “I think all the activity is overwhelming them. Do you know if there’s any place we could put them that won’t be quite so busy? We might just need to use the pictures.” He held up a couple large, glossy photos of the real kittens. “We have their information and all that.”

“Yeah, sometimes kittens don’t respond well to all this commotion,” Cassie added in a confident tone. “Do you know anywhere we could put them for a few hours?”

<Office,> I whispered in thought-speak to Father Martinez.

“Um, well—” Father Martinez said, looking confused. He blinked a few times and glanced around, like he had heard something.

One more time, I whispered, <Office.>

Father Martinez frowned. Then he shook his head slightly, as though to clear his mind. He looked at Cassie and said, “How about my office? I may be stepping in and out, but it certainly won’t be as busy as out here in the lobby.”

“That would be great,” Cassie said gratefully.

<He shoots, he scores!> I cheered.

<We’re not home free yet,> Rachel said. <Stop gloating because you did a single thing right.>

<I take my victories where I can get them,> I replied.

The cage jerked as Jake lifted it up and followed Father Martinez back to his office. It didn’t take long for us to arrive in a small room with a heavily stocked bookshelf covering the entire back wall. The desk was mostly unadorned, but the adjacent wall held a large corkboard on which Christmas cards from different smiling families were pinned. On the other side stood a small table and a plush chair, which sat underneath a painting of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus in her arms.

Jake set us down on the side table while Cassie said, “This should help them calm down, thank you.”

“No problem, of course,” Father Martinez said. “I’ll leave the door unlocked so you can keep checking on them as needed.” He glanced around the room and gave a small chuckle. “Honestly, I forget to lock it more often than not anyway. I doubt there’ll be any trouble. Would you like to head back up front?”

There was only a slight hesitation before Jake replied, “I’m going to sit with the kittens a bit before heading back out, if you’d like to keep manning the table?” He looked to Cassie for permission.

“I think that sounds good,” Cassie agreed. She looked over at Father Martinez and began to walk out, engaging him by asking, “How many of these events do you have a year?”

Father Martinez’s reply was lost as they shut the door behind them, blocking out most of the sound from the rest of the church.

“Okay,” Jake said, kneeling beside the cage. “Tobias just told me that he saw a gray minivan pull into the parking lot, so that could be the Controllers. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take for them to get a meeting with Father Martinez. It will probably be best for you guys to demorph and remorph right now so we have some leeway with the time.”

He opened the cage door and pulled each of us out one by one. Rachel and I demorphed, limbs extending and twisting as our organs ballooned out inside our bodies. As the last of the fur sucked back into my face, I said, “I don’t know about you, but being a kitten honestly just makes me want to nap. And bite things.”

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed, making a face. “I felt way more powerful as a full-grown tabby. Kittens are just excitable and awkward.”

“Kind of makes you wonder what morphing a baby would be like,” I said, considering. “Like, would we be able to balance correctly? I mean, we know how to walk, but are infants even physically capable of it?”

Jake seemed intrigued by the speculation, but quickly shook himself out of it. “Cool idea, but we should discuss it later. You guys need to remorph.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rachel replied, waving her hand at him dismissively. Black fur rippled down her arms and legs.

My kitten face was the first thing to return, shooting giant whiskers and pointed ears out of my head. I began to swiftly shrink down as my teeth elongated in my mouth and my nose pushed out to form a small snout.

Undeterred, I said, <No, think about it. Would we be able to talk? Babies don’t talk because they’re dumb and don’t know any words, but would they even be able to talk correctly if they did? Are babies’ vocal cords fully developed when they’re that young?>

“I feel like you could find the answer to that in a human anatomy textbook or something,” Jake said. My inner eardrums changed shape as he spoke, and the second half of the sentence was much clearer than the first.

<How could they know?> Rachel asked. <It’s not like there are a lot of young babies who are smart enough to talk that early.>

<We could totally help advance the study of baby animals,> I said. The kitten’s energy and affection was washing through me again, now that I was nearly completely morphed. <Biology nerds would love us.>

“Keep that in mind for Career Day, I guess,” Jake said. He reached down and lifted Rachel and I off the floor, depositing us both in the cage once again. “For right now, let’s just do this and try not to get caught.”

He shut the door of the cage and exited the room, shutting the door behind him. The overhead light was still on, giving me a clear view of Rachel using her opportunity to groom her own fur. It was weird.

Then I looked at my fur, and was struck by the sudden desire to clean it. It was too messy! There were a couple bits of lint stuck in between my claws, and I immediately started licking at the webbing to get them out.

<Do you ever think about how weird our life is?> I asked Rachel as I groomed my paws.

<I honestly try not to,> she replied.

<…yeah, that’s probably a smart idea,> I acknowledged.

Here’s something the action movies never tell you: missions are, for the most part, boring as crap. I think there’s a quote somewhere about the military like, _deployments are 90% waiting around, 10% panic._ Let me assure you: based on my experience with our missions, that is 100% accurate.

Rachel and I spent the next twenty minutes or so waiting around in a quiet room for something new to happen. Now, if this had been Jake or even Tobias, I probably would have started up some dumb debate about comic books or something. Even Cassie is good for a solid discussion or two. I don’t understand Ax well enough yet to know how that conversation would go, but at least it would be entertaining.

Talking with Rachel was often like firing the first shots of a battle. At least, for me it was. I’m sure Cassie and Tobias would tell it differently.

I’ll be honest, most times I enjoyed needling Rachel. She was so easy to provoke, and better, she gave as good as she got. Most girls went with the ignoring routine. Rachel clearly thought ignoring problems was for wimps.

But today, I was tired. It had been a long week. And the kitten brain sharing space in my head was telling me that it was the perfect time to just curl up and go the fuck to sleep. Verbal sparring with Rachel was not conducive to that.

Thankfully, Rachel seemed to think silence was the best option as well. Or maybe she was having a private discussion with Tobias to pass the time. I don’t know. I’m sure they come up with creative dates somehow.

Regardless, I wasn’t really sure how much time passed while we were waiting. I was deep in a happy kitten dream when the door abruptly opened again and voices spilled into the room.

“—so glad you were able to meet with us again,” Gibson was saying.

I jerked awake, tension churning through my body. I could feel the hair on my tail standing on end at the sudden shock of noise.

Luckily, none of the people entering the room paid the cage any mind.

<Finally back, Sleeping Beauty?> Rachel asked. I blinked over at her, willing my kitten anxiety to fade away, and she said, <Don’t worry, nothing happened. Until now, at least.>

Father Martinez led the two Controllers into the room, gesturing vaguely to the chair as he went to sit down at his desk. Adams and Gibson were dressed in suits once again, which looked especially formal compared to Father Martinez’s festive orange button-down and jeans.

Much like on Wednesday, Father Martinez looked reserved and stony as he regarded the two people in front of him. “I am always willing to speak with members of our community,” he said, without any warmth whatsoever.

<Wow,> Rachel said. <Cassie was not kidding.>

<Dude’s colder than Hoth,> I confirmed.

<What?>

<Never mind.>

At the desk, Father Martinez casually sorted through some papers. “In any case, I have read over the proposal you left with me on Wednesday. You are more than welcome to attend our meeting next week, but unfortunately, I won’t be bringing this matter up to vote.”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Adams said, “Excuse me?” Her expression was carefully controlled, but her tone definitely had an edge to it.

“It doesn’t seem to be within our means at this time,” Father Martinez said.

Adams’ cool mask slipped, revealing open irritation, but Gibson cut off any outburst with a sharp gesture. With a forced grin, he said, “I’m not certain I understand why you’re denying this proposal, Father. Surely it would be beneficial for both of our organizations. Not to mention, the impact on the community.”

“Indeed, The Sharing has done a lot of good in the community,” Father Martinez agreed, with the air of a teacher acknowledging the positive aspects of a class clown. “But the fact is, ever since The Sharing first started in this town, our church attendance has been dropping.”

There was a beat of stunned silence from the other side of the desk.

Then, Adams asked, “What?”

“Do you think the churches haven’t noticed?” Father Martinez asked, frowning at them. “Don’t get me wrong, we have a certain degree of ebb and flow to our membership all the time. And some of our regulars do successfully participate in both The Sharing and our congregation. But most of them suddenly find themselves too busy to worship anymore.”

“Well—,” Gibson began, trying to regain his smooth negotiation cadence. “There’s no reason that we couldn’t incorporate more worship opportunities into a joint—”

“I’m not the only religious leader who has concerns,” Father Martinez interrupted, shooting Gibson a sharp look. “Every single religious institution in this county has reported losing members at a much higher rate than our surrounding branches. And every single one points to the growing presence of The Sharing as the cause.”

“Just because young people find The Sharing to be more entertaining than church doesn’t mean we’re the bad guys here,” Adams protested. Ironically.

“Ah, yes,” Father Martinez said. “Normally, I would agree with you. I was the first church leader to reach out to other service groups, like the YMCA, the Boys & Girls Club, and any number of community organizations. I think it’s very important for religious and secular groups to collaborate.”

“Exactly,” Gibson said, nodding in agreement. “We’re just looking for a more stable community—”

“Except that unlike those groups, The Sharing does not collaborate,” Father Martinez said coldly. “I’ve done my research. Every time The Sharing claims to do a joint initiative, it winds up taking over the activity. Membership in the previous club starts to drop. Eventually, there is no joint initiative – there’s just The Sharing.”

Father Martinez took a deep breath, pursing his lips. “So tell me: why should my church – or any church for that matter – want to work with your organization?”

Back in the cage, I looked over at Rachel. <Wait, so he’s on our side because he doesn’t like competition?>

<Score one for jealousy,> Rachel confirmed, tone gleeful.

In front of the desk, Adams and Gibson were both regarding Father Martinez with carefully blank, focused stares. After a moment of contemplation, Gibson tried to reason with him. “The Sharing is only interested in—”

But Father Martinez had clearly had enough. He waved a hand at the Controllers dismissively, saying, “No, I don’t care to hear more of your assurances. Our Lady of Guadalupe will not be working with you. And after my meeting with several other religious leaders tomorrow afternoon, I doubt you’ll have success with any other church either.”

Both Adams and Gibson started talking at the same time, sounding outraged.

“Father, surely there’s a way—”

“I can’t believe you would just—”

This time, both of them were cut short by the ringing of the phone. Father Martinez held up a hand and answered, listening for a few moments before saying, “Of course, I will be right there.” He hung up and turned back to Adams and Gibson, saying, “I would be happy to continue this discussion, but first I have to take care of an issue out front. Would you feel comfortable waiting for a moment?”

“Certainly,” Adams said, through clenched teeth.

With the barest of nods, Father Martinez made his way out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Adams angrily stood up, hissing, “This _cannot_ happen! There’s no way we can lose every institution!”

“Father Martinez was our best shot at getting in,” Gibson replied. He looked frustrated. “If he’s joined the bandwagon to ban The Sharing, it’s going to be nearly impossible to convince anyone else—”

“So we make sure he votes our way!” Adams snarled. She started pacing around the room, gesturing loudly with her arms. “I have not come this far for my rank to be stolen away by some pompous elderly _human_ on a power trip! He’s worked with other groups, there’s no reason that—”

Just then, Adams stopped short, gaze locking on our cage. Her eyes narrowed.

“When did Father Martinez get pets?” Adams asked.

<Uh-oh,> I said, not liking her expression.

Gibson raised an eyebrow and turned to look over at us. He shrugged, replying, “They’re doing a pet adoption event, remember?”

“So why would they keep kittens in a back office?” Adams asked, approaching the cage menacingly.

<Don’t do anything,> Rachel hissed. She had been grooming herself and deliberately didn’t stop, turning her head to lick at a patch of her shoulder fur.

<No shit,> I said. I was still curled up near the cage entrance and wishing like hell I had thought to move to the back corner.

“Maybe they’re sick or something.”

“Or maybe they’re Andalite bandits in morph. They don’t look very sickly,” Adams said. She glowered down at us. “Maybe they already got to Father Martinez.”

“As kittens?” Gibson asked. However, his tone was losing its skeptical air. He stood up to regard our cage more closely. “We can’t just kill them—”

“We can’t risk it either,” Adams snapped. “We’ll go with Plan B for Father Martinez. I’m not letting Andalite bandits ruin this operation.”

Without another word, she bent down and opened the cage. I jumped back, kitten instincts shooting adrenaline through my system, but I wasn’t fast enough to avoid her human hands. A hand wrapped around me and yanked me out of the cage before I could even hiss.

<Marco!> Rachel said, jerking upright as the cage slammed shut.

<I can’t move!> I yelled back. Adams’ hand gripped tightly around my torso and pinned my front paws, leaving just my legs to scratch ineffectively at her arm.

<Jake! Cassie!> Rachel called. <We need help!>

I saw Gibson open the cage and reach for Rachel, but she hissed and clawed at him. He pulled his hand back, frowning.

Adams lifted me to eye-level, narrowing dark brown eyes at me. I struggled feebly, calling out with weak meows.

“I bet you wished you had chosen a more powerful form, Andalite _filth_ ,” Adams hissed, eyes alight with cold fury.

“We don’t even know that they are Andalites,” Gibson reminded her. He didn’t seem particularly concerned with Adams’ maniacal actions. He added, “You should probably just get on with it before the priest gets back.”

“Gladly,” Adams said, sneering down at me. She wrapped a second hand around her first, tightening her grip even more.

<CASSIE! JAKE!> Rachel yelled. <We need you now! She’s about to kill Marco!>

I gasped for air, feeling the pressure on my lungs. Adams looked gleeful as she crushed me, hissing, “Better safe than sorry, after all.”

Black spots began to appear in my vision. A rush of dizziness ran through me as I tried to get out, but the pressure was all around me. It was too much!

SNAP!

SNAP!

SNAP!

My ribs broke with a rush of white-hot pain.

The world swirled around me.

Then blackness hit, and I was gone.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: references to drug use; child neglect; sexual harassment; animal abuse; major injury to a main character.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Sorry not sorry for the cliffhanger. :) If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please feel free to let me know.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the darkest chapter, so please see end notes for trigger warnings if you're concerned.

 

 

The world came back to me slowly, starting with sound.

<Marco! Marco, wake up!>

“—cannot believe you! How could you be so irresponsible?”

“She just wasn’t aware of how tight she was holding him—”

<Marco, come on, you’re breathing, wake up! Wake up right now!>

“Are you kidding me? I’ve seen toddlers be more careful with animals! This is completely ridiculous – you are _adults_! You should know better!”

I started to recognize my surroundings. The room was a blur of gray and white around me. I was back in the cage, lying on my side next to a blanket. Another kitten was crouched beside me, frantically grooming my head.

Blearily, I murmured, <…is Cassie… yelling?>

<You’re awake? _Finally_! > Rachel said, pausing in her administrations to look down at me. <Guys, he’s awake!>

<How is he?> Tobias asked. His thought-speak sounded far away, but I could still hear the clear concern.

<He’s not moving,> Rachel reported. She licked at my fur again. <Can you move?>

I tried jerking a paw and nearly passed out again at the sharp, overwhelming pain. I let out a tiny whimper, gasping for air. That only made the pain worse, as jolts of hot pain shot through me with every breath.

<Nope,> I reported. My brain was still fuzzy. Air wasn’t coming in right.

In the background, Cassie – and it definitely was Cassie – was still shouting, sounding more furious than I had ever heard her. “I brought them back here so they could calm _down_ , and now this happens? You nearly _killed_ him! I can’t believe this – we’re trying to _help_ these animals, and—”

“I assure you, this sort of thing has never happened here before,” Father Martinez cut in. He sounded nearly as angry as she did. “I sincerely apologize for the actions of these… individuals—”

“I didn’t intend to hurt him,” Adams added. Her tone has shifted entirely. She sounded overwhelmed and teary, just begging for sympathy.

“Didn’t intend to—? Are you joking? You ought to be _arrested_ —”

<Cassie, we have to get Marco out of here,> Rachel said. <I think you’ve convinced them we’re genuine by now.>

I blinked a few times, trying to focus. Jake’s face suddenly swam in my vision through the metal bars of the cage. “Hey, buddy,” he whispered, cooing like he was talking to an actual kitten. “Are you doing okay?”

<I think… my rib is in my lung,> I said, still gasping. My breath sounded uncomfortably wet. There was a strange copper taste on my tongue that I didn’t want to think too closely about.

“Cassie, he needs some attention,” Jake called out.

“I just— I can’t deal with this right now,” Cassie said, gesturing over at the cage. “I have to get him back to our clinic.”

“Of course,” Father Martinez assured her. “I will call your father tonight to talk about what happened.”

“Good,” Cassie snapped, sounding as pissed off as I had ever heard her. Jake picked up the cage carefully, though the motion still sent waves of pain rippling through my body.

I started to feel dizzy again as they walked out of the room, overwhelmed by the shuddering movement.

Suddenly, we were outside. Sun glared down at me through the cage.

<Marco?> Rachel asked. She prodded my face with her paw. <Are you still with us?>

<Ow,> I said. It was getting harder to breathe.

“—have to morph back before my dad gets here,” Cassie was saying. “We can probably get away with saying that he was just stunned, as long as Marco is able to act as a kitten for a little while longer.”

“Where can we go for that?”

<There’s a park nearby,> Tobias offered, and the cage swung around again—

Darkness.

Fuzzy light. The sound of metal against concrete and—

Someone grabbed me— sudden pain, burning through my chest—!

“Marco, wake up!”

“You have to demorph!”

<Marco, demorph now!>

I blinked a few times, still feeling like there was a vise around my chest. Demorph. I could – I could do that. I just had to—

The pressure around my lungs began to slowly lift as I started to grow, bones melting and shifting around in my insides. My arms and legs shot out like weeds as fur began to vanish back into my flesh. My skin reemerged tan and dark in the dim light of the room.

Suddenly I was back, no longer beset by overwhelming pain. I was sitting on the dirty concrete floor of one of the single-stall park backrooms, with the rest of the Animorphs – sans Cassie – standing around me. Tobias was perched awkwardly on Rachel’s arm while Ax crowded near the sink in his Andalite form.

I just sat there for a moment, gasping.

“You okay now?” Jake asked, concerned.

I stared up at them blankly.

After a long moment, I finally said, “Remember how we said kittens were going to be easy? Remember that? What were we thinking? Did we forget who we are? We are the _people that fate shits on_. That is our role in life.”

<That’s pretty accurate,> Tobias confirmed. He fidgeted and preened a few feathers, because he was _stuck as a hawk_ and okay, fine, maybe my near-death kitten experience wasn’t as bad as it could be.

Jake grimaced. “I hate to say it, but Cassie went to call her dad. Think you could morph again?”

I just glared at him.

Then I sighed 

And began to morph.

 

\--

 

 

The day was finally over. Rachel and I were chilling on the grass in Jake’s backyard while our fearless leader helped his mother with the dinner dishes.

“So,” I said, not bothering to look away from my lazy stargazing. “What do you think the odds are of the Yeerks trying to infest Father Martinez tomorrow?”

“Hm,” Rachel considered. She was sitting next to me, arms draped over her knees as she made a daisy chain with the long grass. “I’m gonna go with 110%.”

“More than 100%?” I asked. “That’s some shaky math.”

“The extra 10% is to show how confident I am.”

“Do you throw out bullshit about giving 110% on a test? Are you that kid?”

“I generally always have about 10% more confidence than other people,” Rachel replied, grinning. “I have to account for that.”

I thought about arguing just to be contrary, but instead shrugged and let it go. It’s not like she was _wrong_.

After Cassie’s parents picked us up, I had to deal with another hour of poking and prodding and acting exactly as injured as Cassie instructed before her dad was satisfied. Finally, right around when I started getting concerned for my morph time, her dad stepped out to give Father Martinez a call, and Cassie was able to switch out Rachel and I for the real kittens.

Her dad was probably going to be a bit confused when the real kitten didn’t seem any worse for wear, but he hadn’t seen how injured I had actually been. Cassie said that cats don’t tend to show their pain, so hopefully that would be enough to fool her dad.

By the time we had been freed, it was nearly dinner, and Jake immediately roped us into coming over to his house. His excuse was that his mother was making lasagna and wanted to brag, but given how readily Rachel agreed, I couldn’t help but assume it was an orchestrated effort to make sure I got something to eat.

Despite the underlying pity, I didn’t argue with it. Jake’s mom’s lasagna is delicious. The fact that Tom was gone doing something with The Sharing made the offer that much easier to accept.

Now it was nearing 10pm and I was avoiding heading back home. I didn’t feel much like dealing with cold silence or boisterous drunkenness, and those were pretty much my only two options.

I’m not sure why Rachel was still hanging around. I didn’t want to ask either. Rachel would probably lie, but I had the sneaking suspicion it also had to do with watching out for me.

The back door slammed shut, prompting me to angle my head back against the cool grass. From my perspective, I saw Jake walking toward us upside-down.

“Hey,” I greeted. “We were just talking about the likelihood of us having another mission tomorrow. What do you think the odds of that are?”

Jake took a moment to consider the question and then replied, “Hm. 110%.”

Rachel laughed. I scowled and said, “I hate you both.”

“Ha,” Jake mocked, grinning at me. Then, smile fading, he asked, “I don’t supposed either of you have a good suggestion for how to stop them without revealing that we’re involved, do you?”

Rachel and I glanced at each other, then back at him. Neither of us said anything.

“Yeah. That’s what I’ve come up with, too,” Jake said. He rubbed his temples for a moment, trying to concentrate. “For tonight, I think we could set up a watch. Tobias kept an eye out after Cassie’s parents came, and Adams and Gibson both left without a huge fuss. The meeting is tomorrow, so we probably don’t need to do it for long. I doubt they’re going to risk him voting against The Sharing.”

“I’ll go to mass tomorrow,” I offered. “I doubt they could get away with kidnapping him from that. Who is watching now?”

“Tobias and Ax were trading off,” Jake answered.

“I can go relieve them,” Rachel said. “My mom thinks I’m spending the night at Cassie’s anyway.”

“Sneaking off to go hang out with your boyfriend?” I teased her. She gave me a sour look, prompting me to grin and add, “Such a stereotype.”

“I can probably leave early in the morning and take over from you,” Jake said, giving me a judgmental glance but otherwise ignoring my quip. “My parents are still buying the early-morning run excuse.”

“I could help you out—,” I began.

Jake cut me off, “Nope, you already said you have mass tomorrow. We’ve got it tonight.”

I made a face. “Look, just because I’m dealing with stuff at home doesn’t mean I’m off the team.”

“No, but you _did_ almost die today,” Jake said. “Just take the break and get some sleep.”

“Besides, you’d just spend the entire time whining about having to get up early anyway,” Rachel added. I scoffed with mock outrage, which made Rachel roll her eyes. “Oh, please, you know I’m right.”

“Of course you’re right,” I said, gesturing my acceptance with one hand. “But still. Offense taken.”

Rachel smirked. Then, without another comment, she twisted her legs under herself and stood up in a graceful, fluid movement. She was wearing a pair of Jake’s basketball shorts and a hooded sweatshirt that hung off her slender shoulders. Somehow, she made it look like a fresh new fashion.

I have no idea how she was able to do that. I was wearing almost the exact same thing and it just made me look scrawny.

She left the yard with nothing more than a casual wave, presumably walking back to her house to find a more secluded spot to morph.

Jake stared after her, frowning. “I’m never going to see those clothes again. Rachel is terrible at returning things.”

“You mean these weren’t donations?” I asked, gesturing to my own borrowed t-shirt and shorts.

“That’s my favorite Batman shirt, you better believe it’s not a donation.”

I grinned at him before stretching and forcing myself to sit up. “As much as I don’t want to, I should probably head home too.”

“You could spend the night,” Jake offered, expression growing tight.

I sighed. “Look, I know you’re trying to help—”

“No, I’m serious,” Jake cut in. “Just stay the night. We could have a sleepover. Pretend we’re normal kids for a change.”

“You already said you’re going to take the early morning watch,” I countered.

Jake had the decency to look abashed at being called out, but he said, “I could have Cassie take it or something. Or you could come with, like you said. I – I just don’t like that you have to go back there.”

I could hear what he wasn’t outright saying. _Go back to a drunk dad and some unknown drug dealer crashing on your couch._ Jake wasn’t really any better at dealing with this than I was. I could tell how uncomfortable he was by the way he kept fidgeting. But he kept his eyes locked on mine the whole time.

“Hey, I don’t like it either,” I said. “But eventually my dad will realize he hasn’t seen me for the past three days.”

“So he can call here,” Jake argued. “It’s not like my house isn’t going to be his first guess anyway.”

I’ll admit, I was tempted. It would be easier to just stay at Jake’s house.

But some entrenched part of me clung to the notion of going home. Not backing down and letting this new normal take over my life. I felt like if I stayed away now, it would be admitting defeat. Letting Dad’s drunken friends win.

Accepting that Dad was a lost cause.

If I didn’t go back, no one would be there for him.

I couldn’t do that.

“Sorry, man,” I said, shooting him a rueful smile. “My video games are better than yours.”

I stood up and brushed loose grass off my borrowed shorts. I glanced around for a secure place to morph, not quite trusting the cover of darkness.

“Come on,” Jake said, standing up and motioning toward the side of the house. He still looked concerned, though he didn’t press the point. “You can morph in the shed.”

Five minutes later, I was a great-horned owl gliding silently through the clear sky.

It didn’t take long to get back home, though I took my time. Despite my need to return, I wasn’t really looking forward to dealing with whatever I was going to find.

I demorphed in some heavy shade on the side of my building and walked along the concrete path to my front door. From ten feet away, I could hear the TV blaring and male voices talking loudly.

Guess tonight we were going with Option B: drunken mess.

I opened the door and made my way inside. I grabbed a hooded sweatshirt from the hook by the door to cover up my morphing outfit as best I could, because I really didn’t feel like having that fight again.

However, as I made my way to the mouth of the living room, I quickly stopped worrying about my dad noticing my outfit.

Dad swayed as he stood by the couch, gesturing loosely at the television as he talked to Rick – I think the chubby guy’s name was Rick, though I wasn’t sure – about some football thing. He was slurring his words and talking more loudly than necessary. While I watched, he tried to set his beer down on the coffee table and missed. Twice.

I glanced at the clock. It was only 10:17pm. Way too early for him to be this bad.

“Yeah, he’s pretty blitzed,” a voice said from beside me, apparently catching my expression. I started, looking over, and saw Lex leaning against the opposite wall. He at least had the decency not to grab me this time, so maybe he was learning. Or just not as drunk.

“How long has he been like this?” I asked, frowning.

“For a few hours,” Lex answered, sipping on his beer. “He got bad news. His temp agency didn’t have a job for him or something.”

“Oh.” There really wasn’t much I could say about that.

“But we could chill,” offered Lex, grinning and gesturing toward me with his bottle. “You look stressed. Want a beer?”

I sighed, rubbing my tired eyes with one hand. Then I shot him a skeptical look and said, “I can’t even drive yet.”

“So? Come on, kid,” Lex wheedled. “You look stressed as fuck. You should live a little.”

“No thanks, man.”

“Well, what about some weed?” Lex asked, brow furrowing. Now that I looked at his eyes, they seemed a little bloodshot too. I wondered if he’d been drinking as long as my dad. “I was being serious this morning, it’s super relaxing. We could hang.”

I stared at him in silence for a few moments. Then, willing up the last of my patience, I just said, “I’m tired. I’m going to bed. Please try to make sure my dad doesn’t do anything stupid.”

Lex shrugged, reaching out a hand to – I don’t know, pat my shoulder or something, but I ducked away from it. I went straight to my room, closing the door behind me with a decisive slam.

My dad hadn’t looked at me once.

 

  

\--

 

 

_It was dark._

_People screamed, agonized faces staring out from cages lit with dim light._

_I could see people I knew. Classmates. The red-head kid from my history class. My lab partner. Rachel’s sisters. Cassie’s dad. Tom._

_My mom._

_I ran to them, but couldn’t get closer. They kept screaming, pleas and cries to free them, get them out, make it stop, but I couldn’t get there, I was running through tar, I was too slow tooslowtooslow—_

_Something grabbed me._

_Adams’ face leered above me, eyes bright with rage and face red with fury._

_I twisted and jerked in her grasp but she gripped me tighter. I was a cat again. I kept biting at her hands but I couldn’t get any traction, and all the while her fingers squeezed harder around me._

_The pressure overwhelmed me like waves at the ocean, relentless and deadly. I couldn’t breathe. Spots flashed like stars in my eyes and I could hear the rush of water building up around me._

_I couldn’t breathe._

_I couldn’t move._

_I gasped and choked and fought but Adams’ grin grew brighter and her eyes gleamed, face alight with murderous glee._

_“Andalite filth,” she hissed as my vision faded to black. I kicked out ineffectively with my back paw, hardly more than a twitch. Her hands crushed me slowly, agony ripping through my body, and I couldn’t breathe._

_I couldn’t breathe._

_I couldn’t breathe—!_

A scream ripped out of me as I jolted up, gasping and hyperventilating. I clutched my hands to my neck, trying to suck in the sweet air. My throat felt hot and swollen, and I choked on the breath, coughing and gasping and feeling like I couldn’t hold it in. My lungs were on fire.

“Hey. Hey,” a male voice said. A hand pushed my shoulder.

I focused on my hands as I braced them around my neck, fingers catching in the collar of my shirt. My breath kept jerking and halting in shaky gasps. I had to breathe. I had to stop shaking, and just _breathe_ , and it was impossible – the air wasn’t coming in – my heart pounded loudly in my ears, desperate for relief, but my lungs weren’t working. The world spun around me.

“Hey!” Hands grabbed my arms, pushing me down.

I fought his grip, startled by the sudden movement, and the shock forced my lungs to draw in a huge breath. The cycle snapped, and suddenly I could breathe again, ragged and rasping and awful. It was all I could do to just sit back and let the breath in.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s cool,” the voice said. A hand patted my face. “Shhhh.”

I blinked, taking in my surroundings for the first time. My door was open. Someone was sitting on the side of my bed, leaning over me.

“…Dad?” I asked.

I barely registered my own words, still focused on my breathing.

The person leaning over me shifted, hand pressing my shoulder back into the bed. The movement was enough to change his position, and the light from hallway glanced along his face.

It was Lex.

He was squinting down at me, eyes glazed over. His other hand kept touching my face, patting it like he was trying to comfort me but couldn’t quite figure out how to do it correctly.

“Shhh,” Lex said again, his voice slurred and unsteady.

Then he leaned forward and kissed me.

I froze, eyes growing wide. My breath stopped short in my throat, stunned into inaction by his mouth pressed sloppily against mine. He smelled like beer and cigarettes, and his lips were cold like rubber.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t – what was happening? What the hell was he even—?

He didn’t notice my shocked stillness, shifting his grip to press me more firmly against the mattress. His tongue pressed into my mouth, slimy and gross and—

I couldn’t breathe.

Then Lex rolled on top of me, rocking up against my body in a strange way that felt twisted and terrible. There was a hand tugging at my boxers, fingers gripping my hips and—

In a flash, my frozen terror evaporated, with fury and panic rushing in and overwhelming me. I didn’t think, I didn’t even breathe; I just fought and kicked against the man holding me down. But he was too big, straddling my hips and forcing me down with his arm. He leaned away and twisted his hand around to cover my mouth, elbow pressed against my shoulder to keep me pinned.

I couldn’t move.

I struggled and shoved at him but the pressure was too much – he was too heavy, and he leaned over me again and pressed his mouth against my neck—

I don’t know how it happened. The terror and panic must have triggered some kind of instinct, because suddenly Lex wasn’t too strong. My shoulders bulged out, dark fur rippling quickly down my arms, and in that moment I felt the tide shift.

I pushed up against him, arm swinging out and catching him along the temple.

Lex flew off the side of the bed, colliding heavily with my dresser. He moaned and slumped to the ground, unmoving.

For a few seconds, I just sat there, half-morphed and gasping.

My door hung open, dim light from the living room shining a half-circle into my room. I could hear the TV playing quietly, but otherwise there was no noise. No reaction to the sound of the struggle.

My gorilla morph drained away from me slowly as I sat there, staring blankly at the bare hallway. My breath rattled in my throat.

I looked back down at Lex, crumpled limply against a pile of my dirty laundry. A trickle of blood dripped down his face from where he struck the dresser.

Panic gripped me again. I had to leave. I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t still be here when he woke up, and he was _going_ to wake up; people didn’t just stay unconscious forever unless they were _really_ hurt, and if he was really hurt then _I did it_ and I had to get out of there, I had to leave _right now_ —

I scrambled out of my bed and bolted for the door, my heart pounding in my ears. I ran through the living room, scarcely glancing at my father passed out on the couch. I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t—

The door slammed behind me, and I was gone.

I sprinted down the street, not thinking about where I was going except knowing that I needed to hide, I needed to get away; I needed to be anywhere but here. It was pitch black outside, but the streetlights helped guide the way until I got to the park.

I drew to a stop by one of the playground sets, my chest heaving as I gasped for breath. Sand shifted under my bare feet as I walked over to the center structure. I sat down against the plastic wall and curled my knees against my chest.

My hands kept shaking. I hugged my arms around my knees and held my elbows, willing the tremors to stop.

I don’t know how long I sat there, shaking and staring into my knees, mind racing like a runaway train. I could still feel Lex’s mouth on mine, his fingers gripping at my hips.

My lips tasted like stale cigarettes. It made me gag and I had to work not to vomit.

Some conscious part of me, tucked deep in the far back corners of my mind, kept whispering, _you’ve been through worse. You’re fine. No one’s dying, no one’s bleeding, no one’s tearing out your guts; you’re fine. This is nothing_.

It was nothing. It was the easiest fight I’d ever won.

I could still feel him straddling me.

I couldn’t stop shaking.

“Marco!” a voice said.

I flinched sharply. For a horrified second, I thought Lex had followed me. But the person in front of me was way too small.

It was Tobias. He was standing before me in human morph, looking awkward in his black morphing outfit. He looked concerned.

“What?” I asked. It sounded as lost and confused as I felt.

“I’ve been trying to talk to you for the last five minutes,” Tobias said, kneeling down in the sand. “You weren’t replying to thought-speech at all.”

I stared back at him blankly. After a few moments, I said, “I— I guess I didn’t hear you.”

“What happened?” Tobias asked. He leaned forward, watching me and moving in slow, careful increments. It looked like Cassie approaching a scared horse, and I had a brief, hysterical image of Tobias studying her to learn how to deal with bad situations. Like she was the people-whisperer.

I didn’t acknowledge his question. I just stared at him. His eyes shined blue even in the darkness, moonlight making him look even paler than normal in his human morph. Tobias looked worried, but even his expressions were dulled, as though he remembered what he should be doing but couldn’t quite manage it.

“Marco?” Tobias asked. He placed a careful hand on my arm.

I managed not to flinch. It was just Tobias. I was fine. I was _fine_.

“How—” I began, not quite able to find my voice. “How are you here? Your meadow… it’s not – how are you here?”

Tobias winced, just slightly. “Um,” he said. “I’m – well, we all are, I guess – we’re kind of standing guard.”

“For Father Martinez,” I finished for him, eyeing him.

“Yes,” Tobias said. “And for you.”

I stared at him.

“Jake asked us to,” explained Tobias. It was a testament to how different he was now that I could barely recognize him for the awkward, shy kid who followed Jake around before. His eyes were sharp and voice steady as he said, “He doesn’t trust your dad. And whatever you’re dealing with, it’s gotten worse. So today he asked us to start keeping an eye out. I wasn’t creeping around or anything, just sleeping in a tree nearby. I heard you scream.”

I frowned, unsure of what he meant, and then I remembered. The nightmare.

Tobias must have seen the realization in my eyes, because he continued, “Yeah, exactly. And then, right when I’m thinking you just had a bad night, I saw you book it to the park in nothing but your PJs, so… yeah. What happened?”

Tobias sat back on his heels, giving me a bit more space. His eyes didn’t leave my face, staring in a familiar intense way. It was weirdly comforting. Like, my life is trash, but at least Tobias can be counted on to be disturbingly hawkish.

While I was considering this, Tobias just waited.

I had no idea what to say.

The sane part of me wanted to deny anything had happened. Just bluster my way out of it, and piss Tobias off enough that he stopped asking. Because the fact is, I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to tell anyone. I didn’t even want to think about it. I wanted to bury this memory so far down that I forgot it ever happened.

But I could still feel Lex’s arm pinning my shoulder – his lips on my neck—

I shuddered.

“Marco,” Tobias said again. “What. Happened?”

“I think,” I started, words tumbling out unbidden from my mouth. “I think I was almost raped.”

I couldn’t look at Tobias anymore. I stared at the ground, knowing he was watching me in shock. The words hung heavy in the air, untouched.

It was ridiculous. It was the kind of scene that I would expect from a freaking Lifetime movie, except between a mother and daughter or some crap. Any moment now, a sappy song would start up in the background and I’d start crying. Maybe Tobias would try to comfort me, or something. If this were a movie, he’d definitely hug me.

But it was real life, and I didn’t feel like crying. I didn’t feel like much of anything, actually.

Tobias didn’t move. The only sign he’d heard me was a sharp intake of breath.

I couldn’t deal with the staring, feeling the words smothering the air between us. Stammering slightly, I said, “Or—or something like that, I don’t know. I don’t know what to call it. But—I mean, he was on top of me and like, _kissing_ me or something, and I freaked out.”

Finally, Tobias reacted more, letting out a shaky breath and leaning forward. Eyes narrowing, he asked, “Wait—your dad…?”

“What? No,” I said immediately. “No, not my dad – he was passed out on the couch. It was his friend, one of his drinking buddies – he’s been staying with us.” I could tell from Tobias’ confusion that Jake hadn’t shared the details of my crumbling home life. With measured breaths, I gave Tobias a short version of the past few weeks.

Telling the story helped to calm my shaking a little. I didn’t go into a lot of details, so it felt like I was giving some kind of sanitized book report. Listen to the tale of Marco’s descent into messed up bullshit. Marvel at how he completely breaks down. Like it wasn’t even me, but some other tragic kid with a YA-novel backstory.

Tobias didn’t react much as I went through the story, but that wasn’t too surprising. I figured he knew some things about having a messed up home life. His eyes stayed locked on me, even as I avoided his gaze.

Once I finished, Tobias leaned back, taking some time to consider the situation. After a moment, he asked, “So where’s this guy now? Still at your house?”

“I bashed his head into a dresser,” I said quietly. “I don’t know how hard.”

“So he could be dead.”

“He was breathing when I left.” It was weird how numb I felt about it, like the adrenaline had burned through my system and left me cauterized against feeling anything. “He was pretty drunk, though. He might still be passed out.”

“Okay,” Tobias said. There was an edge to his tone that matched his piercing stare. “So you have this asshole living at your house, hiding his drugs there, and being… let’s just say, really creepy. And then he— does this.” He paused, and then said, “Why shouldn’t we call the cops?”

“We should,” I admitted quietly, hating myself. “But we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Come on, Tobias, what would you do if you were a cop? If you saw some teenage kid in a situation like mine? You’d be speed-dialing CPS before you took the first witness statement.”

“I know,” Tobias said. “And foster care sucks. Trust me, I’ve been there. But I have no idea if it made my situation better or worse. I was only there for a few weeks before the state shipped me back to my uncle.”

I knitted my brow, surprised at the honesty.

Tobias caught my expression and shrugged, expression uncertain. “All I’m saying is, maybe it’s the wake-up call your dad needs.”

“Or maybe I’ll lose him entirely,” I snapped back, without any real anger. I felt too detached for anything more.

“Maybe,” Tobias acknowledged. “But it makes me think about what my social worker said. Back when I went into foster care and all… she listened to my whole life story and made all these notes and whatever, but then at the end she set them aside and asked me one simple question: do you feel safe in your home?”

“Safe?” I repeated.

“Yeah,” Tobias said. He gestured toward me. “Do you feel safe? Would you feel safe going home right now?”

I took a breath and didn’t respond, looking down at my hands. It didn’t matter. Tobias already knew the answer.

We sat in silence for a long stretch, listening to the wind blowing through the trees.

Finally, I just said, “I can’t lose my dad, Tobias. I just can’t. I don’t know what to do, but I can’t call the cops. They won’t get it. They don’t know what we know.”

Tobias stared at me. His eyes narrowed in thought, and he slowly replied, “They can’t do what we can do.”

I frowned.

Tobias abruptly stood up and brushed the sand off his knees. He reached out a hand and said, “Come on. Let’s go meet Jake at Father Martinez’s house.”

Clearly my face reflected my confusion, because Tobias shot me a small conspiratorial grin. He simply said, “I think I know how we can solve both of our problems.”

It was late. I was exhausted and shaken and really not up to doing anything. But Tobias’ confidence ignited the first good feeling I’d had in hours.

I took his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: near-death experience; panic attacks; sexual assault of a minor by an adult; violence.
> 
> One chapter left! I hope this chapter worked for everyone and the warnings were sufficient. Please let me know what you think in comments. I should be posting the final chapter this weekend before I have to leave for two months of internet-isolation for my job. :P 
> 
> Free free to follow me on Tumblr. I'm panaili there as well. :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see end notes for trigger warnings.

 

 

 

The next morning seemed to pass by in a daze.

Mass had finished nearly two hours ago, but I didn’t really remember much of what was said. I’m sure it was spiritual, and maybe later I’d find myself in a good place to listen. Right now didn’t really feel like the best time, what with the alien war and rocky home life and all.

Also, I had gotten maybe four hours of sleep, so adding an hour-long church service to the mix didn’t exactly help.

After the service, I found myself sitting on an uncomfortable bench, paging aimlessly through a pamphlet about finding an inner relationship with God. The church had mostly cleared out after mass finished, but the occasional person still walked by. I fielded three separate offers of assistance before I decided to make myself look busy with the reading material scattered on the table to the side of the bench.

Based on the pamphlets I’d read so far, God is apparently really big on helping with marriage counseling and chronic illnesses.

Of course, the real reason I was waiting was located fifty feet away at the end of the hallway. Father Martinez had disappeared into his office after mass, so – as the only Animorph with any credible case for being there – I was stuck monitoring the area.

As the church grew more and more empty, I could feel the tension from the rest of the group start to build. There was no way the Yeerks would let Father Martinez go to his meeting and officially denounce The Sharing. Not with the way Adams had been freaking out. So something was going to happen. We just didn’t know exactly what that would be.

Shortly after mass, Rachel snuck into Father Martinez’s office in fly morph and spied on his calendar. The meeting was at 3pm. From my view of the wall clock, it was now half past one. If the Yeerks were going to strike, it would have to be soon.

<Ugh,> Rachel complained, her voice somewhat faint from her position inside Father Martinez’s office. She had already left to reset her morphing time once, and from her increasingly irritated comments, it was clear the wait was trying her patience. <This guy is the slowest typist ever.>

<It’s not his fault,> Tobias offered. He was stationed outside the church, but still close enough to chat. <It’s not like computers were around when he was a kid.>

<Yeah, but they’ve been around for at least five years now. He could have taken a typing class or something.>

<Maybe he was busy running the church?> Tobias suggested wryly.

As I lingered on the bench, I got to listen to a group-wide thought-speak conversation to which I couldn’t respond. It was about as frustrating and annoying as it sounds. But our plan called for minimal morphing, so there wasn’t really much I could do.

Early this morning, Tobias and I managed to meet up with Jake by the time the sky was just starting to lighten. I then had to tell Jake what happened, which – in case you were wondering – did not get any easier the second time. Luckily, Tobias was there to keep us on task with his plan, despite Jake’s clear frustration and anger.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated the rage in a vague, good-to-know-someone-cares kind of way. But my nerves were still on edge, and having a mission to plan helped with my lingering panic. Or at least, it helped more than watching Jake get mad.

Though going to Jake’s house to shower and get a change of clothes helped the most, all things considered.

Now I was waiting in the back hallway of the church, feeling weirdly numb about the past twenty-four hours of my life. I fidgeted in a pair of Jake’s slacks and a button-down, both of which were too large on me. At least I had my own morphing outfit on under the borrowed clothes, thanks to a quick clandestine retrieval by Tobias.

He didn’t tell me if Lex was still there, and I didn’t ask.

We had other things to worry about.

<Hey guys,> Tobias said. <We’ve got a gray mini-van approaching.>

<The vehicle is stopping behind the church,> Ax added. Both he and Tobias were waiting as lookouts outside, just as they had been for most of the mission.

I took a quick glance down the hall. A little farther past Father Martinez’s office was a glass paned door leading out to the back alley.

<Just like we thought,> Rachel said. <Are Cassie and Jake good to go?>

<Prince Jake just pointed a thumb upwards toward me,> Ax reported.

<So… a thumbs up? That’s a yes?>

<I believe that is correct.>

<What about Cassie?>

<She has not pointed her thumb at me.>

<That doesn’t answer my question, Ax.>

<Don’t worry, Cassie finished her part,> Tobias said, sounding amused.

I sighed, leaning back and rolling my eyes. It was a miracle we ever got anything done sometimes, I swear.

<Okay, get ready,> Tobias continued. <Two annoyed Controllers heading in.>

The back door creaked loudly as Adams and Gibson walked in. I stayed carefully out of sight, trying to maneuver into a position where I could still observe without revealing myself.

Gibson knocked on the door to the office, adopting the kind of ersatz smile I was used to seeing on the faces of politicians. When the door opened, he said, “Father Martinez, I know we spoke already, but I just wanted to stop by and offer a formal apology for the incident yesterday.”

Behind him, Adams nodded congenially, clearly trying to portray a repentant person. It was off-putting, though it took me a moment to figure out why I was so instantly thrown off. Her facial expressions were correct, but her stance seemed too aggressive. She leaned on the balls of her feet like she was preparing to move.

“There was no need to stop by,” Father Martinez said. From his tone, I got the impression he was getting sick of seeing them. “The kitten apparently didn’t suffer lasting injuries, so there won’t be an additional investigation. I’m sure The Sharing will move past this.”

“Regardless, we wanted to make up for the incident,” Gibson said. “We’ve brought some items to donate to your church. Would you be able to step outside and let us know which ones will be useful to you?”

Father Martinez hesitated. “I have to finish up a few e-mails before I head out to my meeting—”

“It won’t take more than five minutes,” Adams cut in. She reached out a hand as if to wave away his worries, and as her stance shifted, her suit jacket bulged out awkwardly.

I frowned. There was something weird about how she was positioned, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

“I suppose I can spare five minutes,” Father Martinez said, clearly just to appease them.

<Red alert, everyone!> Rachel reported, from her fly-eye vantage point. <They’re heading outside.>

<What?> Tobias shot back, sounding alarmed. <No, we need more time. We aren’t ready yet.>

Father Martinez pulled out his keys and closed his office door as Rachel replied, <What do you mean, not ready yet? They’re heading out right now!>

<Stall them!>

<What am I supposed to do? I’m a fly!>

<Not you,> Tobias corrected. <Marco, stall them!>

I was already moving. By the time I closed the distance to Father Martinez’s office, all three of them had turned toward the back door.

“Father Martinez!” I called out, not entirely sure what my play was going to be. Stall him, Tobias said. But my mind went blank as Father Martinez turned to look at me. What could I say? I hadn’t gone to mass regularly for years, and I’d only seen him once since then. It’s not like I’d be able to make up some church emergency. _Quick, the holy water is missing!_

“Marco,” Father Martinez said, mild surprise in his eyes. “I thought I saw you at mass today. Did you need something?”

“Um,” I said, scrambling for something to say. “I was just wondering if I could, um, talk to you? In private?”

From behind Father Martinez, Adams and Gibson started to look annoyed.

“I’d be happy to speak with you, but – would we be able to meet tomorrow instead? Unfortunately, I’m a bit busy today,” Father Martinez said after a brief moment of thought. He gave a low chuckle, adding, “For priests, Sundays aren’t exactly the day of rest the Lord intended.”

<He’s not biting,> Rachel reported. <How much longer do you need?>

<It isn’t ready yet!> Tobias repeated. <Marco, you have to keep him inside.>

“Uhh,” I said, unsure of how to continue. I felt like I was fighting through a tangled forest, just rooting around for some plausible lie. Father Martinez kept watching me, expression stern and knowing. All the times he lectured me as a child flooded my mind, blanking out any other thoughts. “I just… needed to speak with you. Now?”

<Are you kidding me?> Rachel said. I had no idea where she was, but clearly she could still hear everything. <That’s the best you can do? I’ve heard you pull better lies out of your ass just to get a second piece of candy before!>

“It really can’t wait,” I added lamely, wishing I could thought-speak right now to tell Rachel to _shut the hell up_. I was way too tired for this shit.

Adams interjected, ignoring me and saying, “Father, it shouldn’t take very long to examine our donation items. Maybe he could just stay here?”

“That might work,” Father Martinez acknowledged. “Marco, if you’d like, I can talk to you in just a bit.”

He turned away, starting to follow Adams and Gibson out the door. Panic started to hit me, knowing that if Father Martinez followed them, he wouldn’t be coming back a free person. Maybe they had the Yeerks in the van, maybe they were just going to kidnap him and be done with it, I had no idea. But I knew there was no way they were going to let him go.

And we weren’t ready for them yet.

An idea flashed in my mind, and I jumped on it without a second thought. Desperately, I said, “I think my Dad needs help!”

Father Martinez stopped and looked back at me, startled by my exclamation. “What?”

“My dad,” I said, suddenly embarrassed. I had hidden my dad’s issues for so long it felt like prying up stone to speak honestly to someone other than Jake. But the truth had more weight than fiction, and I couldn’t think of any lie that would work quite as well. “He lost his job, and now he’s hanging around these bad guys all the time. One of them is living with us now, and I’m pretty sure they’re doing drugs. And they’re drunk all the time, and so is he, and—”

I paused, knowing Rachel was listening, but Father Martinez had taken a step closer to me now. I thought back to the conversation I’d had with Tobias the night before and continued, “I don’t feel safe in my house anymore. I need your help.”

And yeah, maybe it all sounded like the script of a terrible made-for-TV movie, but the thing was?

It worked.

I could see the moment Father Martinez realized that I was being serious by the way his brow suddenly furrowed, open concern in his eyes. Almost immediately, he shifted his stance. “Of course I can help, Marco. Mr. Gibson, Ms. Adams, thank you for your donations. If you bring them up front, our fellowship director Mrs. Ruiz should be able to help you.”

“But—,” Gibson started, looking alarmed. “We still need—”

“I’m sure we can use whatever you’ve brought,” Father Martinez said as he re-opened his office. “Right now, I have more pressing matters to attend to.”

I shifted uncomfortably against the far wall, where I had repositioned myself once Father Martinez starting opening his office. I stood next to Adams, who was looking increasingly frustrated the longer the conversation went on.

Gibson tried again, clearly aggrieved. “What about your meeting?”

Father Martinez finally opened his office door. When he looked over at Gibson, it was with condescension in his gaze. “This is a little more pressing than my meeting, Mr. Gibson. I can send in my vote by phone. Or perhaps even by e-mail. They don’t need me to be present.” He gestured toward me, adding, “My congregation is more important that any one meeting.”

<Okay, they seem to be buying it,> Rachel said. <What’s going on with you guys?>

<It should all be in place in one Earth minute,> Ax answered.

At least my ploy was working. The thought didn’t help dim the rising tension I felt.

Gibson narrowed his eyes at Father Martinez’s response, just as I was feeling proud of my distraction. A cold, determined expression took over his face.

I felt a chill go down my spine.

“Marco, you can come in,” Father Martinez said, stepping aside and reaching a hand back to lead me into his office. His back was to the Controllers. Unable to shake my sudden nervousness, I stepped forward.

Suddenly I was yanked back, and an arm wrapped around my neck. I jerked away instinctively, but went still as I felt cold metal digging into the back of my head.

My eyes went wide as I abruptly realized what was happening.

“No,” Adams hissed from directly behind me, her voice icy. “We are not playing this game any longer. You will come with us _now_ , Father Martinez, or I’ll kill the kid.”

Father Martinez stared in shock, frozen in the doorway to his office.

For some reason, all I could think was, _well THAT escalated quickly_. And then Adams shifted her grip and the barrel of her gun – and it had to be a gun, from the way Father Martinez was suddenly so scared – moved to my temple.

Okay. Not so funny anymore.

<Uh, guys? They have a gun,> Rachel reported. <And one of the Controllers just grabbed Marco.>

I glanced over Father Martinez’s shoulder, where I could see a fly perched on doorframe. As I watched, Rachel crawled forward on the dark wood, clearly trying to get a better vantage point.

<What?!> said Tobias.

<Don’t do anything,> Jake said sharply. I hadn’t realized he had morphed again. <Don’t give them any reason to shoot you.>

I couldn’t reply, of course, but I certainly thought _no shit, Sherlock_ as strongly as possible. It didn’t help ease the mounting terror in my gut.

“You don’t have to do this,” Father Martinez said, holding his hands out in a pacifying gesture. “Please. We can put the gun away.”

“I’m afraid we can’t,” Gibson said, adopting a patronizing tone. “You had your chance to work with us, Father.”

“We can talk this over—”

“Time for _talking_ is over,” Adams snapped, pressing the gun harder into my head. Her arm tightened around my neck, making the panic start to rise up in my throat. I tried to focus on what was happening, but my hands started to shake. _I couldn’t breathe_. She was pressed against my back, arm solid and unmoving against my neck. _I couldn’t move._

<Seriously, Marco?> Rachel said, snapping me out of my building hysteria. <We should have just attacked them. This is twice in two days that you’re being threatened by this bitch. I mean, come _on_. >

Something about Rachel’s stark irritation made the panic ebb just enough to regain my bearing. I forced myself to concentrate on my breathing. Adams had me by the neck, but she wasn’t actively choking me. And yeah, these guys were Yeerks, but they weren’t stupid. They wouldn’t shoot a gun in the middle of a church. The only reason they’d risk pulling out a gun in the first place was because they were desperate. They just needed a hostage as their backup plan.

And like an idiot, I’d given them one.

If Father Martinez’s expression was any indication, their new plan was a good one. “Please,” he pleaded, dark eyes pinned on Adams. “I will come with you. Please just let him go. He’s a child, he doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Too late,” Adams said, sounding smug.

“You should have worked with us from the start, Father,” Gibson added. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him gesture toward the glass door. “Let’s go.”

Father Martinez swallowed, matching my gaze for a long moment. Then, setting his jaw, he stepped toward the door and followed Gibson outside.

Adams shifted the gun to my side, hissing, “Come on, kid. Don’t make me shoot you.”

<They’re heading outside and they still have a gun on Marco, guys.>

<Stick with the plan.>

I took a shallow breath and let myself be pushed forward, feeling the gun pressed against my ribs all the while.

Adams led me down a couple stairs, hand clamped tight around my collarbone. Any hope I had of extra time was dashed when I saw the gray mini-van parked at the mouth of the alley, scarcely ten feet away. As we approached, Father Martinez climbed into the front seat, looking back at me with terrified, furious eyes.

I glanced at the adjacent street warily. Where were they? We had a _plan_.

Adams shoved me toward the back of the mini-van, where the side door was rolled open. Thinking quickly, I stumbled, falling to the concrete and jarring my knees with my landing. Anything to buy a few more seconds, just long enough to—

“Get up!” Adams snapped, grabbing my arm and thrusting the gun into the back of my neck. “Seriously, we should just kill the kid now.”

“Are you crazy?” Gibson replied. He was standing next to the open side door. “This is a residential neighborhood.”

“I don’t _care_ what kind of—”

Then, just like those freaking angels they kept singing about at mass, I heard—

“FREEZE! POLICE!”

“Drop your weapon!”

I fell forward as Adams jumped back, catching myself painfully on the street. Looking up, I saw three police officers standing there in full uniform, guns out and pointed directly at Adams.

There was a moment where Adams hesitated. I could see it from my spot on the ground, staring up at her. She still had the gun in her hand, thankfully now pointed at the ground instead of at me. But it was clear what she was thinking – she could take out the cops. And hey, maybe if she had been holding a Dracon beam she’d have managed it. From what I’ve seen, they tend to fire faster.

But Adams was stuck with simple human technology. The exact same technology as those three police officers, and they were better trained.

“Drop the weapon _now_! Get on your knees!” the cop in the center yelled, her gun held ready. “We _will_ shoot!”

Adams slowly knelt to the ground and placed her gun gingerly on the street. By the car, Gibson followed her lead.

And just like that, it was over.

 

\--

 

 

It took a while for the police officers to secure the scene. We hadn’t really planned on me being stuck there, but then again, our plan hadn’t factored in the gun. Don’t get me wrong, the whole gun angle definitely helped the arrest stick, but we had been going for a much simpler option.

As one of the police officers started to examine the van, I waited for the inevitable outburst. And sure enough—

“Holy crap,” the investigating officer said. He leaned around the side of the mini-van, gripping the propped open hatchback. “Hey, it looks like the tip was right. There’s like a thousand bucks of heroin back here!”

“What?” Adams and Gibson exclaimed together, breaking their previous commitment to silence.

“You have the right to remain silent,” said the officer from before, a dark-haired woman with stern eyes. Right now she sounded amused. “Anything you say can and will be held against you—”

“Those drugs aren’t ours!” Adams cried out, clearly not paying attention.

<Ha ha, they’re yours now,> Tobias cackled from his perch. <Caw caw, the wily hawk bandit strikes again.>

I looked down at the ground, trying to suppress my urge to laugh.

It had been Tobias’ idea to steal Lex’s drugs and frame the Controllers. Honestly, I don’t know how he thought of it, but it was a simple solution to our complicated no-morphing-allowed problem. The hardest part had been convincing Cassie that planting stolen drugs in someone’s car was the preferred course of action, but in the end, she was swayed by the lack of violence in our plan.

Well. At least, the lack of violence until the Controllers brought a gun.

In any case, one hour later I was leaning against the trunk of a police car, bored out of my mind. The rest of the Animorphs had taken off once it was pretty clear that the police officers weren’t Controllers. It had been a risk, of course, but one that we eventually deemed acceptable – even if one of them had been infested, they would still have to follow protocol. Once Father Martinez sent his vote in, there would be no reason for them to infest him. Not to mention that getting arrested on the job would make Visser Three even less likely to support Adams and Gibson’s initiative. Win-win.

I waited around while the cops secured the scene and took statements, because they weren’t willing to let me leave without a guardian. My statement had been fairly short – “Um, I went to talk to the priest and they stuck a gun in my face?” – but apparently the addition of drugs added a whole new dimension to the crime.

I was considering just walking away anyway when I heard someone cry out, “Marco!” and was immediately smothered by a tight hug. I tensed in surprise, but then the familiarity hit.

“Dad?” I asked, voice muffled by virtue of my face being shoved into his sweater.

“I can’t—,” Dad started, pulling away and staring down at me. His eyes were red and bloodshot, which I expected, but he was a lot more alert than he normally was during a hangover. “Where have you been?”

I stared at him in startled shock. “Uh… what?”

A voice coughed from behind Dad, and I looked over to see Jake standing there with his parents. Before I could ask about _this_ turn of events, Jake said, “He’s been looking for you since this morning. He was at my house when I got home.”

“Yes, and thank God you at least tell your friends where you’re going!” Dad exclaimed. “I woke up this morning and you weren’t there, and—” He paused, as though he suddenly reconsidered what he was about to say. Dad glanced over at Jake’s parents awkwardly, and then continued, “I just need to know where you are, okay?”

He pulled me into another hug, and I could feel his hands shaking.

I could only imagine what he was thinking. Dad had never freaked out this bad about me leaving without notice before, so… He must have found Lex in my room. Combined with the blood on the ground and the missing kid, it made sense that he would jump to conclusions.

I really didn’t know how to tell Dad how correct those conclusions were. For a brief moment, I locked eyes with Jake over Dad’s shoulder, wondering what my dad had been saying. Before Jake could do anything more than shrug, his parents pulled him aside to give my dad and I some privacy.

“I just went to mass, Dad,” I finally said, which wasn’t technically a lie. Dad tried to step back, but I hugged him tighter, reveling in the contact. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d hugged me without being drunk.

“I need to know where you are, Marco,” Dad repeated, voice shaking. He sounded too alarmed for the situation. He pulled back from the embrace, eyes darting around my face as they searched for some sign of injury.

He definitely knew something had happened at home.

“I know,” I said quietly. I couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Dad regarded me for a long moment. He started to speak again a few times, aborting each option. Finally, voice trembling, he said, “I kicked Lex out, Marco. He’s gone. I—I don’t know what happened, but he’s gone. Okay? You were right, we can figure something else out. I’m… I’m sorry I didn’t listen before.”

I didn’t know what to say. The last time I’d seen Dad this shaken up was just after we received word that Mom had vanished. He had collapsed at the kitchen table, staring blankly at the phone. And for the past year, I had fought in our war with the deep fear that I would cause him to look like that again. I was terrified that I would vanish, dying in some anonymous animal’s body, and Dad would just give up completely. He’d sit at the kitchen table again and just waste away.

From the way Dad clung to my shoulders, it seemed that apparently Dad was terrified of that too.

“Peter?”

Dad and I turned to see Father Martinez, who had just finished giving his witness statement to the police. Dad blinked a few times, glancing around as though he was just now noticing the cop cars.

“Um,” Dad said stupidly. “Father…?”

“Martinez,” Father Martinez informed him. He seemed to have rebounded from our hostage situation with relatively few ill effects, still radiating out a steady calm. “Your wife worked with me in our Youth Group workshop before her passing.”

“Right, yeah, I remember,” Dad said, though he clearly didn’t. His eyes darted to last remaining squad car, brow furrowing. “What happened here?”

“It’s a long story,” Father Martinez replied. “Though one I’m happy to share. In fact, I would like to speak with you and Marco anyway. Would you have some time right now?”

I stared at him for a second in mild confusion before I remembered my distraction gambit. Already it felt like it had happened days ago instead of just an hour earlier. I waited for the familiar caution to hit, warning me against telling anyone, but instead I just felt calm.

It didn’t matter anymore, not really. I’d already spilled the beans. Now I just had to ride it out.

Father Martinez touched Dad’s shoulder with an open palm, expression serious but compassionate. Dad didn’t reply right away, but eventually he nodded, looking apprehensive. Quietly, he said, “Yeah, that sounds good.”

And even though nothing had really changed, as Dad led me toward the church, it felt like a weight being lifted off my shoulders.

 

\--

 

One week later, I was perched as a literal fly on the wall for what Biblical scholars would probably have described as something out of Dante’s remix of Revelations.

Two giant lizard creatures were menacing a man in the corner of a dinky motel room. The monsters were tall and muscular, with freaky beaks and long tails, but the most terrifying aspect were the numerous blades that covered their entire bodies. They looked like the inevitable conclusion of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mixing with a blender.

Earth might have some scary animals, but we don’t have anything on the Hork-Bajir.

From the gasping shrieks of terror coming from the man, he was clearly not having it. He was also completely drunk, which sort of inhibited his ability to get away.

<Look here, asshole,> one of the Hork-Bajir snapped in open thought-speak. <Leave town. Tonight. Get as far away from this place as you can, or _we will_ _find you_. And you won’t like it when we do. >

<Don’t think we can’t,> the second added, compounding the threat with a vocal hiss. <We know everything. All your sins. We’ll know if you try to come back. And we will make you pay.>

<Oh, and stop drinking. And selling drugs. All of it.>

“Y-yeah,” the drunk guy said. “Yeah, I get it. I’ll stop, I promise. Please don’t kill me.”

<Leave tonight,> the second Hork-Bajir said. <Or the next time we meet, we’ll be having this conversation with our _blades_. >

The man fell desperately silent as the lizard monster placed a deadly sharp blade near his face. He started to shake his head rapidly, affirming, “No, no, I’ll leave, I’ll leave right now, please let me go.”

The Hork-Bajir stepped back, and Lex scrambled to his feet. Without a second glance back, he booked it out of the motel room, slamming the door behind him.

After a few moments of listening in case someone had heard the commotion, the Hork-Bajir started to shift, limbs shrinking down and blades vanishing into skin. It took a minute, but soon instead of eight-foot tall monsters, there stood a red-tailed hawk and a willowy blonde girl.

“Well, that was fun,” Rachel said, combing her long hair out with her fingers. “Still not willing to tell me why we just terrified that random guy?”

<Nope,> Tobias replied. <Remember? No questions asked.>

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. This has been a weird date so far,” said Rachel, though she seemed more amused than anything. Without further prompting, she walked over to the window and pulled it open, shifting the cheap curtains aside. There wasn’t a screen, and the dim night sky was clearly visible. “Now come on, I want to get ice cream. Think you can stand to fly a little more this late?”

<Whatever you want, Rachel,> Tobias said.

Shortly thereafter, a hawk and an owl flew out of the window.

Five minutes later, I was an owl myself, flying slowly back home.

Jake was waiting at my apartment when I emerged from behind the dumpsters, looking relaxed as he sat on the stoop in front of my front door. At this point, I wasn’t even surprised.

“Long time no see,” I called out ironically. “Did you miss me from lunch?”

“Desperately,” Jake replied in the same deadpan tone. “How did the mission I definitely didn’t know about go?”

“Oh, the one you would disapprove of? If you knew about it?” I asked. Jake smirked at me. “It seemed to work. We’ll just have to wait and see how well.”

Jake sighed. “I wish we could do more than that. Even if he gets out of town, he’s just going to do the same crap to someone else.”

I sat down next to him, arms draped over my knees. “Can’t solve everything. Though who knows? Maybe they really were able to put the fear of God in him.”

“Guess that’s the best we can hope for,” Jake acknowledged. He fell silent, and the distant sound of nighttime traffic overtook our conversation. After a few moments, he glanced over at me and asked, “How are things now?”

“Better,” I answered. “Father Martinez hooked Dad up with some AA group, so he’s been going to that most days. The church has contacts with a couple job resource centers, so hopefully he can find something long-term through them.”

“He’s still looking?” Jake asked.

I gave him a sidelong look, raising an eyebrow. “It’s been a week, Jake. Things don’t fix themselves that quickly.”

“But it’s getting there, right?”

I paused before answering, honestly thinking about my answer. Jake watched me as I considered it, tapping his fingers reflexively on his knee. Dad was home now, probably messing around on his computer or chilling in front of the television, but we had cleared the house of any alcohol, so it was different. As far as I was concerned, it was one hell of an improvement.

Finally, I said, “It’s a work in progress. But it’s better.”

“And you?”

“Sure,” I said, though I looked away, not really wanting to get into it. My nightmares had certainly featured various terrifying memories from the past two weeks, but that was pretty much par for the course. I’m sure our next mission would provide a fresh new batch of horrors to pull from.

Still, Jake was waiting. I could talk to him, maybe. Tell him about the memories of Adams crushing me, and of Lex assaulting me; maybe even go into the lingering, paralyzing fear that I still remember from the Yeerk pool. He’d understand. Hell, he probably had those kinds of nightmares too.

But that really wasn’t my style.

I forced a smile, looking over at him. “I’m good, man. In fact, I think I’m feeling a Mortal Kombat match-up. What was that you were saying about me being predictable?”

Jake stared back at me, just a beat too long, before he rolled his eyes and said, “You _are_ predictable. This isn’t even going to be a contest.”

“Brave words,” I said, standing up to head inside. “We’ll see.”

Jake grinned and followed me in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: gun violence; hostage situation; references to previous sexual assault (not graphic)
> 
>  
> 
> It's finished! As much as it can be, in any case. Unfortunately, Marco doesn't really get the help he needs for therapy, but I thought that this ending was closer to canon. These kids go through a lot of crap and tbh I think they all need *so much therapy*, but sadly it never happens. It's up to you if you think Marco winds up telling his dad about what actually happened with Lex -- Peter knows enough to guess (hence the freak out), but not any details.
> 
> In any case, thank you all so much for reading this story and reviewing! I really appreciate getting the feedback, especially when it calls my attention to something I hadn't considered before. I hope you all liked the conclusion here. Please let me know what you think in comments.
> 
> I will try to reply to as many comments as I can, though I'm leaving tomorrow on an off-site for my job, so my access to the internet will be limited. Regardless, I will reply eventually -- it just might take two months. :/
> 
> Also, if you're a Tumblr fan, I'm "panaili" there as well, so feel free to come say hi. :)


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